FTSE STI closed 3,153.06, down 43.60 points or -1.36% with a total volume of 1.98b and a total value of S$1.89b. Total number of advance vs decline was 161 vs 296. Of the 30 component index stocks, 5 closed positive, 2 unchanged and 23 in the red. The 5 gainer component stocks were :-
1. JMH USD +0.730
2. Jardine C&C +0.060
3. Sembcorp +0.030
4. SIA Engg +0.020
5. ThaiBev +0.005
The top 5 loser component stocks were :-
1. UOB -0.690
2. DBS -0.590
3. SGX -0.160
4. CityDev -0.150
5. OCBC -0.120
US markets rose at least 1% yesterday but Asian bourses were mostly lower for the day with Nikkei -0.42%, SSE +0.00% and HSI -0.09%. STI reopened after the long weekend fell 1.36% in moderate volume and value with only 5 of the 30 index stocks managed to close positive.
US markets finally managed to turn positive after past few days in the red with the help of rebound in crude oil price. However, Asian markets failed to take the lead mostly turning into red giving up earlier gain. Couple of events happened during the day with Greece officially clinches the 3rd bailout deal and China Central Bank in a surprise move de-valuated the yuan. With corporate earning probably coming to an end, investors will be looking at macro events in particular what Central Bankers will do to curb the recent weakness in global economy. Meanwhile, the talk of US Fed hike rate next month continued to pile up. Question will be in the mind that is the status of US economy at the moment really warrant a rate hike ?
Singapore fared worse than regional markets as selling across the board in particular the bank stocks weighed down the index. This was due to the weak set of 2Q GDP data being released this morning. 2Q GDP fell 4% but slightly better than the expectation of -4.6%. With that figure, the official forecast GDP for 2015 was revised down to between 2% and 2.5% from between 2% to 4%. Export growth for 2Q also slowed to 2.1% as compared to 4.8% in 1Q. Question will be what's next from Government to help to rebound the economy instead of just pushing the blame to all the weak external factors as so far all those measures have proved nothing are working. The selling down for the day is a knee-jerk reaction to the weak set of data.
