Rally May Stall For Singapore Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has finished higher in two straight sessions, gathering more than 20 points or 0.6 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now rests just above the 3,385-point plateau although it's likely to run out of steam on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on renewed concerns over the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses are expected to open in similar fashion.

The STI finished barely higher on Monday following gains from the financials, weakness from the properties and a mixed picture from the industrials.

For the day, the index perked 1.64 points or 0.05 percent to finish at 3,385.93 after trading between 3,375.52 and 3,392.59.

Among the actives, Ascendas REIT tumbled 1.33 percent, while CapitaLand Investment skidded 0.75 percent, City Developments eased 0.12 percent, DBS Group jumped 0.96 percent, DFI Retail plunged 1.82 percent, Emperador spiked 1.01 percent, Genting Singapore added 0.50 percent, Hongkong Land dropped 0.61 percent, Keppel Corp declined 1.10 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust surged 1.34 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust retreated 1.24 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust plummeted 1.70 percent, SATS sank 0.65 percent, SembCorp Industries rallied 0.84 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering fell 0.27 percent, SingTel gained 0.39 percent, Thai Beverage tanked 1.44 percent, United Overseas Bank collected 0.60 percent, Wilmar International shed 0.49 percent, Yangzijiang Financial soared 1.33 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding slumped 0.77 percent and CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation and Comfort DelGro were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened lower on Monday and remained in the red throughout the session.

The Dow shed 34.99 points or 0.10 percent to finish at 33,891.02, while the NASDAQ tumbled 119.50 points or 1.00 percent to end at 11,887.45 and the S&P 500 sank 25.40 points or 0.61 percent to close at 4,111.08.

Concerns about the outlook for interest rates continued to weigh on Wall Street following last week's stronger than expected jobs data, which could prompt the Federal Reserve to speed up its pace for interest rate hikes.

Computer hardware stocks were under pressure, as were steel, housing, semiconductor and gold shares.

Oil prices climbed higher Monday on optimism energy demand from China will see a big jump after Saudi Arabia unexpectedly increased the prices of oil to be shipped to Asia. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March ended higher by $0.72 or 1 percent at $74.11 a barrel.