Trading in the Singapore bourse was considered flat yesterday. The Straits Times Index (STI) fell at 1,795.47, down by 3.48 points or 19 percent. During the week it increased by 3.17 percent or 55.13 points.
Compared to last week’s 1.13 billion shares worth $997 million, the volume traded this week at 983.58 million shares worth 846.83 million is not significant. One dealer said that the participation of foreign inputs was apparent as “the STI did not mirror the movements of Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index or Wall Street’s overnight slump.”
However, there was a spurt of buying in transport blue chips and property shares particularly in Singapore Airlines and CapitaLand. Shares for CapitaLand went up by 24 cents from $3.06 to $3.30; Keppel Land by 17 cents from $1.62 to $1.79; Singapore Airlines by 56 cents from $11.60 to $12.16; and ComfortDelGro by two cents from $1.41 to $1.43.
Others which were adversely affected included Wilmar International, which was down by 23 cents to $2.71; Sembcorp Marine, down by four cents to $1.75; and Keppel Corp, down by two cents to $4.47. The heaviest pull on the STI, however, was by SingTel, the giant Singaporean telecommunications company, which was down by 11.4 points.
The DBS Group Holding went up by 15 cents, the OCBC Bank dropped by four cents while the United Overseas bank remained unchanged at $13.
Citigroup predicts that these erratic movements will likely to remain until the first half of 2009. It added, “if equities sink further through to February-March or June, we think they will likely strike a medium-term bottom and head towards recovery in the latter half of the year.”