Singapore Bourse May Be Stuck In Neutral On Wednesday

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market on Tuesday snapped the two-day losing streak in which it had slipped more than 20 points or 0.6 percent. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 3,590-point plateau although it may spin its wheels on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets offers little clarity, although technology shares may provide a slight boost. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The STI finished slightly higher on Tuesday following mixed performances from the financial shares, property stocks and industrial issues.

For the day, the index added 6.28 points or 0.18 percent to finish at the daily high of 3,590.36 after trading as low as 3,568.70.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust skidded 0.97 percent, while CapitaLand Investment slid 0.35 percent, City Developments fell 0.39 percent, DBS Group collected 0.54 percent, Emperador and Yangzijiang Shipbuilding both jumped 1.19 percent, Genting Singapore climbed 0.60 percent, Hongkong Land tumbled 1.52 percent, Keppel Ltd added 0.31 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust dropped 0.75 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust plunged 1.65 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust retreated 1.47 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation rallied 1.05 percent, SATS lost 0.51 percent, SembCorp Industries declined 1.34 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering sank 0.64 percent, SingTel shed 0.62 percent, Wilmar International was down 0.31 percent, Yangzijiang Financial slumped 1.22 percent and Comfort DelGro, Frasers Centrepoint Trust, DFI Retail Group, Seatrium Limited, Keppel DC REIT and Thai Beverage were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is murky as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday and largely hugged the line before ending mixed.

The Dow slumped 154.52 points or 0.36 percent to finish at 42,233.05, while the NASDAQ jumped 145.56 points or 0.78 percent to close at a record 18,712.75 and the S&P 500 rose 9.40 points or 0.16 percent to end at 5,832.92.

The climb by the NASDAQ came ahead of the release of earnings news from big-name tech companies, including with Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL).

Semiconductor stocks showed a particularly strong move to the upside, driving the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up by 2.3 percent.

In U.S. economic news, the Conference Board noted a substantial improvement by U.S. consumer confidence in October. Also, the Labor Department said job openings in the U.S. fell to 7.44 million in September from a downwardly revised 7.86 million in August.

Oil futures settled lower again on Tuesday amid concerns crude supplies will far exceed near term demand. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended down $0.17 or about 0.25 percent at $67.21 a barrel.