Win Streak May End For Singapore Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has climbed higher in back-to-back sessions, advancing almost 60 points or 1.6 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 3,855-point plateau although it may run out of steam on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on concerns over U.S. tariffs that were put in place over the weekend. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The STI finished sharply higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares, property stocks and industrial issues.

For the day, the index jumped 54.75 points or 1.44 percent to finish at 3,855.82 after trading between 3,837.96 and 3,876.32.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust rose 0.52 percent, while CapitaLand Investment gathered 0.41 percent, City Developments sank 0.39 percent, Comfort DelGro and DFI Retail both strengthened 2.17 percent, DBS Group collected 2.01 percent, Genting Singapore soared 3.42 percent, Hongkong Land improved 0.93 percent, Keppel DC REIT jumped 2.33 percent, Keppel Ltd added 0.89 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust slumped 0.82 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust tanked 2.33 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust plummeted 3.71 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation advanced 2.11 percent, SATS fell 0.29 percent, Seatrium Limited increased 0.90 percent, SembCorp Industries spiked 2.76 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering gained 0.62 percent, SingTel climbed 2.15 percent, UOL Group eased 0.20 percent, Venture Corporation dipped 0.24 percent, Wilmar International rallied 2.63 percent, Yangzijiang Financial surged 4.40 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding accelerated 2.69 percent and Emperador and Thai Beverage were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened higher on Friday and stayed that way for much of the day before a late slide saw them all finish in the red.

The Dow tumbled 337.44 points or 0.75 percent to finish at 44.544.66, while the NASDAQ slumped 54.26 points or 0.28 percent to close at 19,627.44 and the S&P 500 sank 30.64 points or 0.50 percent to end at 6,040.53. For the week, the Dow rose 0.3 percent, the S&P 500 dropped 1.0 percent and the NASDAQ lost 1.6 percent.

Stocks plummeted in afternoon trading after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed President Donald Trump's threatened tariffs will be levied against major U.S. trading partners beginning the following day.

Leavitt said the Trump administration will be implementing 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada as well as a 10 percent tariff on China.

The news the tariffs will be implemented led to concerns about higher inflation keeping the Federal Reserve on hold for longer.

Oil futures settled lower Friday amid uncertainty about implementation of Trump's tariff plans on Canada and Mexico, while a stronger dollar also weighed. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for March fell $0.20 at $72.53 a barrel.