The Singapore stock market headed south again on Thursday, one day after ending the two-day slide in which it had dropped more than 25 points or 0.8 percent. The Straits Times Index now sits just beneath the 3,075-point plateau although it’s expected to rebound again on Friday.
The global forecast for the Asian marketsis mixed to higher ahead of key employment data from the United States later today. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were up and the Asian markets also figure to track higher.
The STI finished modestly lower on Thursday following losses from the financial shares, property stocks and industrial issues.
For the day, the index shed 12.98 points or 0.42 percent to finish at 3,074.26 after trading between 3,052.35 and 3,079.80.
Among the actives, Ascendas REIT rose 0.35 percent, while CapitaLand Investment jumped 1.31 percent, City Developments soared 1.47 percent, Comfort DelGro stumbled 0.75 percent, DBS Group skidded 0.95 percent, Genting Singapore surged 3.24 percent, Hongkong Land lost 0.61 percent, Keppel Corp tanked 1.62 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust rallied 0.71 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust added 0.44 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust shed 0.62 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation sank 0.79 percent, SATS eased 0.37 percent, Seatrium Limited slumped 0.98 percent, SembCorp Industries dropped 0.81 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering slid 0.54 percent, SingTel was down 0.43 percent, Thai Beverage declined 1.18 percent, Wilmar International fell 0.56 percent, Yangzijiang Financial tumbled 1.59 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding retreated 1.34 percent and Emperador and CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust were unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is positive as the major averages opened higher on Thursday and largely stayed that way throughout the session.
The Dow gained 62.95 points or 0.17 percent to finish at 36,117.38, while the NASDAQ surged 193.28 points or 1.37 percent to end at 14,339.99 and the S&P 500 added 36.25 points or 0.80 percent to close at 4,585.59.
The strength on Wall Street reflected ongoing optimism about the outlook for interest rates ahead of the release of the Labor Department’s closely watched monthly jobs report later today.
The jobs report could have a significant impact on the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting next week, RTT News reported.
While the Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged, traders will be looking to the jobs data to provide further evidence the central bank could cut rates as soon as March 2024.
Oil futures settled slightly lower Thursday amid lingering uncertainty about the outlook for energy demand due to global economic slowdown. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended down $0.04 at $69.34 a barrel.
