Soft Start Seen For Singapore Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has finished lower in two straight sessions, slumping more than 25 points or 0.8 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 3,075-point plateau and it may take further damage on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets offers little clarity ahead of key U.S. employment data later this week. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses figure to follow suit.

The STI finished slightly lower on Tuesday following losses from the financial shares and mixed performances from the properties and industrials.

For the day, the index slid 6.92 points or 0.22 percent to finish at 3,077.16 after trading between 3,067.25 and 3,090.43.

Among the actives, Ascendas REIT fell 0.35 percent, while CapitaLand Investment retreated 1.31 percent, City Developments lost 0.49 percent, DBS Group skidded 0.82 percent, Emperador climbed 0.97 percent, Genting Singapore and Singapore Technologies Engineering both shed 0.54 percent, Hongkong Land added 0.31 percent, Keppel Corp slumped 0.88 percent, Keppel DC REIT rallied 1.59 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust dropped 0.72 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust sank 0.62 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation eased 0.16 percent, Seatrium Limited tumbled 1.94 percent, SembCorp Industries surged 2.46 percent, SingTel advanced 0.88 percent, Wilmar International declined 1.10 percent, Yangzijiang Financial stumbled 1.56 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding jumped 1.34 percent and CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust, Comfort DelGro, Mapletree Industrial Trust, SATS, Thai Beverage and Venture Corporation were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is again inconsistent as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday. The NASDAQ quickly broke into the green and ended positive, but the Dow and S&P stayed in the red.

The Dow shed 79.88 points or 0.22 percent to finish at 36,124.56, while the NASDAQ gained 44.42 points or 0.31 percent to close at 14,229.91 and the S&P 500 fell 2.60 points or 0.06 percent to end at 4,567.18.

The initial weakness on Wall Street came as traders continued to cash in on recent strength in the markets amid concerns optimism about the outlook for interest rates has led to overbought conditions.

While the Federal Reserve is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged in the coming months, traders may need more evidence to solidify hopes of a rate cut in the near future.

The subsequent rebound came as a Labor Department report may have reinforced those hopes, showing a bigger than expected decrease in U.S. job openings in October.

Oil prices dropped on Tuesday for a fourth straight session, on lingering concerns about the outlook for demand and on disappointment over the small size of additional output cuts announced by OPEC. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended down $0.72 or 1 percent at $72.32 a barrel.