Singapore Bourse May Test Support At 3,200 Points

(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 slide in which it had fallen almost 25 points or 0.8 percent. The Straits Times Index now rests just above the 3,225-point plateau and it's expected to see continued consolidation on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on continuing recession fears. The European and U.S. markets were sharply lower on Friday and now the Asian markets are tipped to open in similar fashion.

The STI finished sharply lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares and property stocks, while the industrials came in mixed.

For the day, the index dropped 35.97 points or 1.10 percent to finish at 3,227.10 after trading between 3,224.58 and 3,247.92. Volume was 1.33 billion shares worth 1.41 billion Singapore dollars. There were 340 decliners and 179 gainers.

Among the actives, Ascendas REIT surrendered 2.14 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust dropped 0.98 percent, CapitaLand Investment stumbled 1.10 percent, City Developments sank 0.86 percent, DBS Group was down 0.36 percent, Emperador climbed 1.02 percent, Genting Singapore plummeted 2.48 percent, Hongkong Land fell 0.62 percent, Keppel Corp and SembCorp Industries both slumped 1.23 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust declined 1.62 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust tanked 2.38 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust plunged 2.42 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation tumbled 1.87 percent, SATS slid 0.52 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering shed 0.81 percent, SingTel weakened 1.12 percent, Thai Beverage lost 0.79 percent, United Overseas Bank retreated 1.42 percent, Wilmar International dipped 0.50 percent, Yangzijiang Financial jumped 1.27 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding skyrocketed 12.73 percent and Comfort DelGro was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street continues to be negative as the major averages opened sharply lower on Friday and stayed that way throughout the session.

The Dow plunged 486.29 points or 1.62 percent to finish at 29,590.41, while the NASDAQ tumbled 198.87 points or 1.80 percent to close at 10.867.93 and the S&P 500 sank 64.76 points or 1.72 percent to end at 3,693.23. For the week, the Dow dropped 4.0 percent, the NASDAQ plunged 5.1 percent and the S&P fell 4.7 percent.

Concerns about the outlook for the global economy continued to weigh on Wall Street after aggressive interest rate hikes by central banks around the world. Traders remain concerned the central banks' efforts to combat elevated inflation will push the global economy into a recession.

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by another 75 basis points earlier this week and signaled more significant rate hikes later this year.

While the Fed's projections pointed to an eventually tapering of rate hikes by next year, traders worry about the outlook for the global economy in the months ahead.

Crude oil prices fell sharply on Friday, pushing the most active crude futures contract to their lowest close in about seven months. Weak outlook for energy demand due to a possible global recession outweighed concerns about tight supplies. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for November ended lower by $4.75 or 5.7 percent at $78.74 a barrel, the lowest settlement since January.

Closer to home, Singapore will release August data for industrial production later today, with forecasts suggesting an increase of 1.5 percent on month and a decline of 0.6 percent on year. That follows the 2.3 percent monthly decline and the 0.6 percent yearly gain in July.