Daily Markets Briefing: STI down 0.84%

Local bourse could be off to a positive start.

The Straits Times Index (STI) ended 26.45 points or 0.84% lower to 3118.84 on Thursday, taking the year-to-date performance to +8.26%.

According to SGX, the top active stocks were DBS, which declined 1.76%, YZJ Shipbldg SGD, which declined 0.89%, UOB, which declined 1.20%, Singtel, which declined 0.51%, and Keppel Corp, with a 1.73% fall.

OCBC Investment Research said this came as US stocks finished slightly higher after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi left easing measures in place but downplayed deflation concerns.

Meanwhile, five out of eleven S&P 500 industries ended higher, led by Health Care (0.60%) and Energy (0.59%) whilst Real Estate (-1.28%) led the losses.

"The mild recovery on Wall Street overnight could cue the local bourse to a positive start this morning," the brokerage firm said.

Here's more from OCBC:

Following STI’s 0.8% correction in the last session, we peg the initial hurdle at 3150, ahead of 3180 for now; on the downside, we peg the immediate support at 3100 and see the next base at 3060.

Overall volume tumbled 9.9% with 2.3b units traded, and total value fell 12.1% to S$1.0b, whilst average value/unit fell 2.4% to S$0.42.

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