1. JSH 500US$ +0.500
2. UOB +0.400
3. F&N +0.190
4. DBS +0.160
5. OCBC +0.110
The top 5 loser component stocks were :-
1. Wilmar -0.430
2. SIA -0.300
3. SembMar -0.130
4. SembCorp -0.120
5. KepCorp -0.080
US markets closed negative last night despite managed to recover from earlier loss of more than 1% as the Greece's issue together with fear of Spain bailout weighed on. Asian bourses were about to rebound from past days of selling down but after China reported a slower than expected export growth for April, closed mixed. Nikkei closed -0.39%, SSE +0.07% and HSI -0.51%. STI swinging between positive and negative just managed to edge out a slight gain closing +0.09% in a heavier volume than yesterday. 16 of the 30 index stocks managed to register positive closing.
EU issue weighed on and today with a weaker than expected export from China, that further piled up the selling pressure. US markets have been displaying intra-day recover for past 2 days and with DJ closing 6 days in a row in the red, it is about time for a technical rebound. Short-covering in STI helped lifted the index up but couple of blue chips like SIA, SembMar, NOL and Wilmar with a miss expectation earning plus weakness in offshore/marine stocks like KepCorp due to falling of oil price offsetting the upside for the day.
The EU issue might continue to unsettle the markets until June but the effect will slowly tapering off as they are not new issues but rather the same old story. Weakness in China export due to Europe and US is also not fresh news hence knee-jerk reaction might be there but it will only be for short-term.
Earning season more or less will come to an end next week for Singapore and this will be the time whereby funds will be adjusting their portfolio like offloading the weak performance or selling off some very profitable to book a realized gain for their 1H portfolio. Market will be range bound. Many are anticipating where STI will land or bottom, advise is IGNORE that and purely focus on the individual stocks.
