Soft Start Seen For Singapore Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market on Wednesday ended the four-day slide in which it had declined more than 90 points or 3 percent. The Straits Times Index now rests just beneath the 3,155-point plateau although it may see renewed consolidation on Thursday.

The global forecast for thew Asian markets is mixed to lower, with oil and technology stocks likely to weigh. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The STI finished slightly higher following gains from the financial shares and mixed performances from the property stocks and industrials.

For the day, the index added 9.93 points or 0.32 percent to finish at 3,154.69 after trading between 3,141.56 and 3,166.57.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust skidded 1.07 percent, while CapitaLand Investment and Keppel DC REIT both slumped 1.19 percent, City Developments advanced 0.89 percent, Comfort DelGro shed 0.68 percent, DBS Group jumped 1.21 percent, Emperador rallied 1.15 percent, Genting Singapore added 0.55 percent, Hongkong Land surrendered 1.74 percent, Keppel Ltd fell 0.29 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust retreated 1.61 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust sank 0.88 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust plunged 2.14 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation collected 0.44 percent, Seatrium Limited declined 1.28 percent, SembCorp Industries rose 0.19 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering gained 0.26 percent, Thai Beverage dropped 1.04 percent, Wilmar International lost 0.30 percent and Yangzijiang Shipbuilding tumbled 1.66 percent and SATS, SingTel and Yangzijiang Financial were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened higher on Wednesday but quickly turned lower, spending most of the rest of the day in the red.

The Dow shed 45.66 points or 0.12 percent to finish at 37,753.31, while the NASDAQ tumbled 181.88 points or 1.15 percent to end at 15,683.37 and the S&P 500 sank 29.20 points or 0.58 percent to close at 5,022.21.

The lower close on Wall Street came on concerns about the outlook for interest rates following remarks by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who suggested rates are likely to remain higher for longer amid a "lack of progress" toward reaching the central bank's inflation goal.

Weakness among technology stocks weighed on the tech-heavy NASDAQ as shares of Nvidia (NVDA) came under pressure, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index also slumped.

Crude oil prices tumbled on Wednesday, adding to modest losses in the two previous sessions after data showed a surge in U.S. crude oil inventories. West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery plunged $2.67 or 3.1 percent to $82.69 a barrel.