FTSE STI closed 1,897.02, up 20.25 points or 1.08% with a total volume of 2.2b and a total value of S$1.3b. Total number of advance vs decline was 444 vs 116. Of the 30 component index stocks, 18 closed positive, 9 closed negative and 3 remained unchanged. The top 5 gainer component stocks were :-
1. JMH 400US$ +1.200
2. JSH 500US$ +0.360
3. CityDev +0.230
4. UOB +0.200
5. Capitaland +0.190
The top 5 loser component stocks were :-
1. SIA -0.360
2. DBS -0.230
3. F&N -0.070
4. SPH -0.040
5. KepCorp -0.040
US markets were mixed yesterday night with bank stocks rallied up in anticipation of a better than expected earnings from them. After market closed, Goldman Sachs posted a better than expected earnings. Asia bourses mostly opened down in the morning in reaction to the mixed US markets but soon erased the losses on close. Nikkei closed -0.92%, SSE +0.54% and HSI reopened for the week, playing catch up on last Thursday US rally closed +4.56%. Regional bourses were cheered by HSI performance and that enable STI to reverse loss to close +1.08%. Singapore announced its 1Q09 GDP estimate this morning and it was down 19.7%, project 2009 GDP to be between -6.0% to -9.0%. It was a worse than expected figure. Later of the day, market news also surfaced that Singapore Government is pondering on a second stimulus package of S$10b. These 2 news initially caused the market to drop but on close selectively heavy weight STI component stocks like SingTel, CityDev, SIA, KepCorp and UOB gap up on close that caused STI to manage to close in the positive region. Investors still very cautious ahead of the earning seasons. In general markets have ran up for quite a while and in need of a correction.
