FTSE STI closed 3,259.75, down 14.16 points or -0.43% with a total volume of 5.66b and a total value of S$1.83b. Total number of advance vs decline was 250 vs 203. Of the 30 component index stocks, 12 closed positive, 3 unchanged and 15 closed negative. The top 5 gainer component stocks were :-
1. JSH 500US$ +0.140
2. CityDev +0.080
3. OCBC +0.050
4. KepCorp +0.050
5. StarHub +0.050
The top 5 loser component stocks were :-
1. JMH 400US$ -1.300
2. Jardine C&C -0.260
3. HKLand US$ -0.190
4. UOB -0.080
5. Wilmar -0.050
5. SembCorp -0.050
US markets closed mostly down with mixture of good and not so good news from economic data and corporate earning resulting in investors profit taking. Asian bourses were mixed for the day with Nikkei +0.39%, SSE +0.53% and HSI -0.07%. STI fell 0.43% in moderate volume and value and only 12 of the 30 index stocks managed to register positive closing.
Markets in general still torn between corporate earning and economic data, lacking a very firm catalysts to breakout or breakdown. STI was much divided with profit taking hit the blue chips and stocks after going XD resulting in drop in index while the increasing in daily volume very much contributed by the penny stocks in which investors turned their attention to penny stocks play again. Singapore Government today released the White Paper on population projecting a population of 6.9m by 2030. That piece of news drove up some infrastructure related stocks. However, it is still questionable whether the proposed infrastructure expansion is able to support that size of population in 2030.
