Daily Markets Briefing: STI down 0.69%

Expect muted gains today.

The Straits Times Index (STI) ended 22.19 points or 0.69% lower at 3211.93, taking the year-to-date performance to -5.61%.

The top active stocks were OCBC Bank, which fell 1.41%, DBS, which declined 0.52%, Singtel, which gained 0.65%, UOB, which dipped 1.37% and YZJ Shipbldg SGD, with a 3.85% advance.

The FTSE ST Mid Cap Index slipped 0.30%, whilst the FTSE ST Small Cap Index declined 0.24%.

According to OCBC Investment Research, US stocks rallied to close higher, with the Dow having its best day in four months, on strong corporate earnings from Walmart Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. News that the US and China are prepared to resume trade talks next week also bolstered investors’ sentiment.

All eleven S&P 500 industries ended higher, led by Telecommunications (2.01%) and Consumer Staples (1.52%) whilst Information Technology (0.25%) and Consumer Discretionary (0.45%) were the laggards.

"The recovery on Wall Street overnight from Wednesday’s session could provide a reprieve in the local sentiment," OCBC Investment Research noted.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia