Singapore Bourse May See Renewed Consolidation

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market on Tuesday ended the two-day slide in which it had fallen almost 30 points or 0.8 percent. The Straits Times Index now rests just beneath the 3,815-point plateau although it may head south again on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative, with weakness expected from the computer, semiconductor and housing sectors. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses are expected to follow that lead.

The STI finished modestly higher on Tuesday following gains from the financial shares and industrials, while the property sector was mixed.

For the day, the index added 18.63 points or 0.49 percent to finish at 3,813.55 after trading between 3,795.70 and 3,820.52.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust slumped 1.03 percent, while CapitaLand Investment lost 0.37 percent, City Developments skidded 0.95 percent, DBS Group collected 0.80 percent, Emperador retreated 1.19 percent, Hongkong Land climbed 0.85 percent, Keppel DC REIT dropped 0.91 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust advanced 0.82 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust tumbled 1.33 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust sank 0.78 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation soared 1.15 percent, SATS fell 0.27 percent, Seatrium Limited surged 1.49 percent, SembCorp Industries rallied 0.89 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering shed 0.44 percent, Wilmar International added 0.65 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding spiked 1.12 percent and SingTel, Thai Beverage, Genting Singapore, Yangzijiang Financial, Keppel Ltd and Comfort DelGro were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened flat on Tuesday and hugged the line for most of the session before sinking firmly into the red late in the day.

The Dow dropped 154.10 points or 0.35 percent to finish at 44,247.83, while the NASDAQ sank 49.45 points or 0.25 percent to close at 19,687.24 and the S&P 500 fell 17.94 points or 0.30 percent to end at 6,034.91.

The weakness that emerged on Wall Street came as traders continued to cash in on recent strength in the markets ahead of the release of the Labor Department's closely watched report on consumer price inflation later today.

While the Federal Reserve is widely expected to lower rates by another 25 basis points next week, the data could impact the outlook for future rate cuts by the central bank.

CME Group's FedWatch Tool is currently indicating an 86.1 percent chance the Fed will lower rates by a quarter point next week but a 69.1 percent chance the central bank will then leave rates unchanged in late January.

Oil futures settled higher on Tuesday amid hopes that demand from China will increase following recent stimulus measures announced by the Chinese government. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January closed up $0.22 or 0.32 percent at $68.59 a barrel.