Singapore Bourse May Crack Resistance At 3,400 Points

RTTNews | 59 days ago

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has moved higher in back-to-back sessions, collecting more than 25 points or 0.7 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now sits just shy of the 33,90-point plateau and it's tipped to open in the green again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is positive on optimism over the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were up and the Asian bourses figure to open in similar fashion.

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

For the day, the index added 14.41 points or 0.43 percent to finish at 3,387.99 after trading between 3,367.94 and 3,393.72.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust shed 0.48 percent, while City Developments skidded 0.76 percent, Comfort DelGro added 0.72 percent, DBS Group advanced 0.96 percent, Emperador slumped 1.16 percent, Keppel Ltd sank 0.49 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust lost 0.42 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation collected 0.77 percent, SATS jumped 2.00 percent, Seatrium Limited tumbled 1.99 percent, SembCorp Industries slid 0.21 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering gained 0.45 percent, SingTel fell 0.34 percent, Thai Beverage rallied 1.00 percent, Wilmar International dropped 0.63 percent, Yangzijiang Financial retreated 1.43 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding rose 0.40 percent and Genting Singapore, Hongkong Land, Keppel DC REIT, CapitaLand Investment, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust, Mapletree Logistics Trust, Frasers Centrepoint Trust and DFI Retail were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened higher on Friday and spent the whole day in the green, ending near session highs.

The Dow jumped 462.28 points or 1.14 percent to finish at 41,175.08, while the NASDAQ rallied 258.39 points or 1.47 percent to end at 17,877.79 and the S&P 500 advanced 63.97 points or 1.15 percent to close at 5,634.61.

For the week, the Dow shot up 1.3 percent, the NASDAQ jumped 1.4 percent and the S&P 500 spiked 1.5 percent.

The rebound on Wall Street came as highly anticipated remarks by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated the central bank is prepared to begin lowering interest rates at its next monetary policy meeting in September.

In other U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department noted a substantial increase by new home sales in the U.S. in July.

Following the rebound in the previous session, the price of crude oil showed another strong move to the upside on Friday. West Texas Intermediate crude for October delivery surged $1.82 or 2.5 percent to $74.83 a barrel after jumping $1.08 or 1.5 percent to $73.01 a barrel during Thursday's session. But the price of crude oil fell by 0.9 for the week due to sell-off earlier in the week.

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