Singapore Stock Market May Spin Its Wheels On Wednesday

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has moved higher in back-to-back sessions, improving almost 35 points or 0.8 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now rests just beneath the 4,050-point plateau although the rally may stall on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cloudy on lingering concerns over U.S. trade policy. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and flat and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The STI finished modestly higher on Tuesday as gains from the financial shares and industrials were capped by weakness from the REITs.

For the day, the index gained 16.00 points or 0.40 percent to finish at 4,047.86 after trading between 4,019.68 and 4,058.80.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Ascendas REIT retreated 1.47 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust stumbled 1.81 percent, CapitaLand Investment skidded 1.12 percent, City Developments gained 0.37 percent, Comfort DelGro dropped 0.70 percent, DBS Group perked 0.13 percent, DFI Retail Group declined 1.35 percent, Frasers Centrepoint Trust shed 0.45 percent, Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust tanked 2.37 percent, Genting Singapore spiked 1.38 percent, Hongkong Land sank 0.48 percent, Keppel DC REIT surrendered 2.20 percent, Keppel Ltd rallied 1.32 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust plunged 2.40 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust tumbled 1.48 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust plummeted 2.56 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation increased 0.84 percent, SATS added 0.66 percent, Seatrium Limited advanced 0.98 percent, SembCorp Industries soared 1.63 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering surged 4.99 percent, SingTel climbed 1.28 percent, United Overseas Bank collected 0.22 percent, UOL Group fell 0.16 percent, Wilmar International lost 0.34 percent, Yangzijiang Financial slumped 1.14 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding improved 0.91 percent and Thai Beverage was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages spent most of Tuesday's trade hugging the line, finally ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow shed 165.60 points or 0.37 percent to finish at 44,240.76, while the NASDAQ rose 5.95 points or 0.03 percent to close at 20,418.46 and the S&P 500 dipped 4.46 points or 0.07 percent to end at 6,225.52.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as investors were reluctant to make significant moves amid lingering uncertainty about President Donald Trump's erratic trade policies.

A lack of major U.S. economic data may also have kept some traders on the sidelines ahead of the release of the minutes of the Federal Reserve's latest monetary policy meeting on Wednesday.

The Fed minutes may shed light on the outlook for interest rates ahead of the central bank's next meeting on July 29-30. CME Group's FedWatch Tool is currently indicating a 95.3 percent chance the Fed will leave rates unchanged this month.

Crude oil prices moved higher on Tuesday on concerns over disruptions to the oil supply lines due to Houthi attacks. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery closed up by $0.40 at $68.33 per barrel.