FTSE STI closed 3,334.02, up 26.32 points or +0.80% with a total volume of 1.23b and a total value of S$950M. Total number of advance vs decline was 275 vs 147. Of the 30 component index stocks, 15 closed positive, 1 unchanged and 4 in the red. The top 5 gainer component stocks were :-
1. Jardine C&C +0.740
2. JMH USD +0.500
3. UOB +0.240
4. DBS +0.220
5. JSH USD +0.220
The 4 loser component stocks were :-
1. HongkongLand USD -0.110
2. Kep Corp -0.080
3. GoldenAgri -0.010
4. Noble -0.005
US markets were closed yesterday and Asian bourses were all positive for the day with Nikkei +2.07%, SSE +1.85% and HSI +0.90%. STI continued the rebound with another gain of 0.80% in typical volume but thin value with 15 of the 30 index stocks posted gain.
With US markets closed yesterday, there wasn't any lead for Asian markets to follow except for China GDP data. 4Q GDP came in +7.3% beating expectation of +7.2% and making FY GDP +7.4% slight below the forecast of +7.5% by Chinese Government. The weakness is expected but is not as bad as most expected. That more or less gave a relief to the market as the hope of Chinese Government doing more monetary easing this year still there. Another event was IMF sliced global growth forecast for 2015 to be 3.5% down from previous estimate of 3.8%. The downgrade is nevertheless expected given the weakness in Europe, China, Japan, Russia and oil exporting nations. Meanwhile investors are all in focus of Thursday ECB meeting in which QE is expected but just what will be the amount. Anything more than 500b euro would be very welcome by investors and should it adopts US Fed style of unlimited can expect global markets to get inflated for 2015.
STI entered the 2nd day of reduced board lot trading but still no sign of significant increase in trading activities though market was up 0.80%. From observation of past 2 days, trading activity for stocks of $2 and above indeed increased slightly, $1 to $2 stocks roughly the same but trading in penny and micro-penny (punters favourite) has reduced as believed they do not want to get caught with the 100 shares quantity and needing to pay higher commission. The key to increase trading volume is to restructure the commission structure and doing without the minimum fee would attract back all the retail traders. Continue to focus on earning play !!!
