FTSE STI closed 3,129.40, up 2.77 points or +0.09% with a total volume of 2.65b and a total value of S$1.07b. Total number of advance vs decline was 237 vs 183. Of the 30 component index stocks, 16 closed positive, 2 unchanged and 12 in the red. The top 5 gainer component stocks were :-
1. Kep Corp +0.120
2. CityDev +0.090
3. SIA +0.090
4. Olam +0.080
5. HKLand US$ +0.030
5. Noble Grp +0.030
The top 5 loser component stocks were :-
1. Jardine C&C -0.930
2. JMH 400US$ -0.280
3. JSH 500US$ -0.080
4. UOB -0.060
5. DBS -0.050
US markets closed down yesterday due to China weak economic data. Asian bourses managed to rebound from yesterday fall with Nikkei +0.69%, SSE +0.10% and HSI +0.02%. STI closed +0.09% in moderate volume and value. 16 of the 30 index stocks registered positive closing.
With no surprise, global markets after corporate earning season was over focused on global events. The weak data from China and Japan yesterday was enough to send investors to take profit and when drop to support level, it will attract bargain hunting to make the global markets in basically range bound mode. The lack of events for the day helped Asian bourses to recover some of the losses from yesterday selling off. Another coming event would be end of this week Crimea's issue as Russia now is dishing out a counter-proposal to what US and EU have. Focus will be whether the Ukraine issue can resolve diplomatically without the use of military action. Prolong stalement will do no good to EU and Russia economically as a whole.
STI recouped some of the losses yesterday as investors came in for bargain hunting. Much of the activity was on the penny stocks where punters punting for either day or short-term profit. The broad market still in consolidation mode with biased towards the upside. Another observation was S-Reits have soften past days and that could be due to rotation of funds to higher risk equity. If that is true, STI could be seeing a rally in a month of 2 times.
