Soft Open Expected For Singapore Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market on Friday wrote a finish to the four-day winning streak in which it had climbed more than 80 points or 1.8 percent. The Straits Times Index now sits just beneath the 4,940-point plateau and it may remain stuck in neutral again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement, with many markets shutting down this week for the Lunar New Year holiday. The European and U.S. markets were mixed and little changed and the Asian markets figure to open in similar fashion.

The STI finished sharply lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, property stocks and industrial issues.

For the day, the index tumbled 78.98 points or 1.57 percent to finish at 4,937.78 after trading between 4,928.95 and 4,990.10.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust tumbled 2.02 percent, while CapitaLand Investment jumped 0.97 percent, City Developments shed 1.02 percent, DBS Group dropped 1.25 percent, DFI Retail Group tanked 3.06 percent, Hongkong Land plummeted 3.40 percent, Keppel Ltd eased 0.39 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust slipped 0.68 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust was down 0.49 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation plunged 3.08 percent, SATS skidded 1.52 percent, Seatrium Limited declined 1.87 percent, SembCorp Industries lost 0.95 percent, Singapore Airlines added 0.87 percent, Singapore Exchange retreated 2.32 percent, Singapore Technologies Engineering slumped 1.77 percent, SingTel contracted 1.80 percent, United Overseas Bank stumbled 2.56 percent, UOL Group fell 0.80 percent, Wilmar International sank 1.11 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding gained 0.59 percent and Genting Singapore, Thai Beverage, Keppel DC REIT, Mapletree Logistics Trust, CapitaLand Ascendas REIT and Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little clarity as the major averages opened lower but quickly inched higher before fading late to end mixed and little changed.

The Dow added 48.93 points or 0.10 percent to finish at 49,500.93, while the NASDAQ slipped 50.43 points or 0.22 percent to close at 22,546.67 and the S&P 500 perked 3.41 points or 005 percent to end at 6,836.17.

For the week, the NASDAQ tumbled 2.1 percent, the S&P dropped 1.4 percent and the Dow dropped 1.2 percent.

The choppy trading on Wall Street followed the release of the Labor Department's highly anticipated report on consumer price inflation in January. The report showed consumer prices rose slightly less than expected on a monthly basis, while the annual rate of growth slowed by more than anticipated.

The tamer-than-expected headline inflation data led to some renewed optimism about the outlook for interest rates and a continued slump by treasury yields.

Crude oil prices inched higher on Friday, regaining some ground following the steep drop seen in the previous session after the IEA lowered its demand forecast. West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery was up $0.06 or 0.1 percent at $62.90 a barrel.

Closer to home, Singapore will release January data for non-oil domestic exports later this morning; in December, NODX was down 9.4 percent on month and up 6.1 percent on year, with a trade surplus of SGD2.205 billion.