Singapore Stock Market May Be Stuck In Neutral On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has alternated between positive and negative finishes through the last six trading days since the end of the two-day winning streak in which it had picked up more than 80 points or 2.5 percent. The Straits Times Index now rests just beneath the 3,280-point plateau and it's expected to see little movement again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed and flat ahead of this week's rate decision from the FOMC. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian bourses figure to follow that lead.

The STI finished slightly higher following gains from the financials, weakness from the industrials and a mixed picture from the property sector.

For the day, the index perked 3.92 points or 0.12 percent to finish at the daily high of 3,278.30 after moving as low as 3,265.57.

Among the actives, Ascendas REIT gathered 0.36 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust skidded 1.00 percent, CapitaLand Investment clumped 1.17 percent, City Developments gained 0.43 percent, Comfort DelGro advanced 0.81 percent, DBS Group added 0.58 percent, Emperador dropped 0.98 percent, Genting Singapore tanked 1.58 percent, Hongkong Land sank 0.80 percent, Keppel Corp plunged 2.44 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust shed 0.60 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust lost 0.59 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation collected 0.40 percent, SATS rose 0.37 percent, Seatrium Limited declined 1.36 percent, SembCorp Industries perked 0.18 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering climbed 0.82 percent, SingTel rallied 1.17 percent, Thai Beverage jumped 1.71 percent, Wilmar International tumbled 1.57 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding retreated 1.43 percent and Mapletree Industrial Trust, Yangzijiang Financial and Frasers Logistics were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little guidance as the major averages opened higher on Friday but faded as the day progressed, ending mixed and little changed.

The Dow added 2.49 points or 0.01 percent to finish at 35,227.69, while the NASDAQ lost 30.49 points or 0.22 percent to close at 14,032.81 and the S&P 500 rose 1.47 points or 0.03 percent to end at 4,536.34.

With the uptick, the Dow closed higher for the 10th straight session and surged 2.1 percent for the week. The S&P 500 also climbed 0.7 percent for the week, while the NASDAQ fell 0.6 percent.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead of the Federal Reserve's highly anticipated monetary policy meeting this week.

With the Fed widely expected to raise interest rates by another 25 basis point, traders are likely to pay close attention to the accompanying statement for clues about the outlook for rates.

Oil futures settled higher on Friday, lifted by data showing a drop in U.S. crude inventories and recent announcements by Saudi Arabia and Russia about crude output reductions. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for September rose $1.42 or 1.9 percent at 77.07 a barrel. WTI Crude futures gained 2.3 percent in the week.

Closer to home, Singapore will provide June numbers for consumer prices later today; in May, inflation added 0.3 percent on month and 5.1 percent on year, while core CPI rose an annual 4.7 percent.