Singapore Stock Market May Run Out Of Steam On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has tracked higher in back-to-back sessions, gathering more than 20 points or 0.6 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now rests just above the 3,245-point plateau although the rally may stall on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on recession concerns and the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were up and the U.S, bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The STI finished modestly higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares and property stocks.

For the day, the index added 9.89 points or 0.31 percent to finish at 3,245.97 after trading between 3,235.82 and 3,248.03.

Among the actives, Ascendas REIT lost 0.36 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust added 0.50 percent, CapitaLand Investment gained 0.28 percent, City Developments advanced 0.61 percent, Comfort DelGro strengthened 0.81 percent, DBS Group perked 0.12 percent, Emperador rallied 1.02 percent, Genting Singapore increased 0.56 percent, Hongkong Land jumped 1.35 percent, Keppel Corp rose 0.13 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust improved 0.60 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust sank 0.62 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation gathered 0.41 percent, SATS surged 4.84 percent, SembCorp Industries dropped 0.93 percent, SingTel shed 0.38 percent, Thai Beverage soared 2.29 percent, United Overseas Bank collected 1.04 percent, Wilmar International climbed 0.75 percent, Yangzijiang Financial spiked 1.52 percent and Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, Singapore Technologies Engineering, Mapletree Industrial Trust, Keppel DC REIT, Frasers Logistics and UOL Group were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened in the red, ticked higher midday but slumped going into the close.

The Dow dropped 305.04 points or 0.90 percent to finish at 33,476.46, while the NASDAQ sank 77.38 points or 0.70 percent to close at 11,004.62 and the S&P 500 lost 29.13 points or 0.73 percent to end at 3,934.38.

For the week, the NASDAQ plunged 4.0 percent, the S&P sank 3.4 percent and the Dow dropped 2.8 percent.

The late-day weakness on Wall Street came as traders looked ahead to this week's highly anticipated Federal Reserve meeting.

While the Fed is widely expected to slow the pace of interest rate hikes to 50 basis points, traders have recently expressed concerns about how much further the Fed will need to raise rates in order to contain inflation.

Adding to concerns about the outlook for interest rates, the Labor Department said U.S producer prices increased more than expected last month. But the negative sentiment was partly offset by a report from the University of Michigan showing a decrease in consumers' inflation expectations.

Crude oil futures fell on Friday. weighed down by concerns about the outlook for energy demand due to a possible global economic recession amid policy tightening by central banks. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended lower by $0.44 or 0.6 percent at $71.02 a barrel. WTI crude futures sank 11.6 percent in the week.