Mild Upside Seen For Singapore Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has finished higher in five straight sessions, gathering more than 50 points or 1.2 percent along the way. The Straits Times Index now sits just above the 4,535-point plateau and it may see continued support on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is upbeat, with technology shares expected to lead the markets higher. The European markets were mixed and little changed and the U.S. bourses were modestly higher and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The STI finished modestly higher on Tuesday following gains from the financial shares and mixed performances from the property stocks and industrials.

For the day, the index improved 11.74 points or 0.26 percent to finish at 4,537.96 after trading between 4,524.67 and 4,539.72.

Among the actives, CapitaLand Ascendas REIT rallied 1.44 percent, while City Developments expanded 1.25 percent, DBS Group was up 0.19 percent, DFI Retail Group shed 0.28 percent, Hongkong Land sank 0.30 percent, Keppel DC REIT vaulted 1.32 percent, Keppel Ltd rose 0.20 percent, Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust jumped 1.39 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust improved 0.49 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation added 0.37 percent, Seatrium Limited slumped 0.93 percent, SembCorp Industries fell 0.16 percent, SingTel gained 0.21 percent, United Overseas Bank collected 0.56 percent, UOL Group surged 2.97 percent, Wilmar International stumbled 1.54 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding soared 2.74 percent and Singapore Technologies Engineering, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust, CapitaLand Investment, Comfort DelGro, Genting Singapore, Yangzijiang Financial, Thai Beverage, Mapletree Logistics Trust and SATS were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is cautiously optimistic as the major averages opened higher on Tuesday and remained in the green throughout the session, although it was a choppy day.

The Dow climbed 185.13 points or 0.39 percent to finish at 47,474.46, while the NASDAQ jumped 137.75 points or 0.59 percent to close at 23,413.67 and the S&P 500 added 16.74 points or 0.25 percent to end at 6,829.37.

The strength on Wall Street came amid a strong rebound by Bitcoin, as the cryptocurrency soared by more than 6 percent after moving sharply lower on Monday. Bitcoin's rally along with an advance by AI darling Nvidia (NVDA) may have been an indication of renewed risk appetite.

Semiconductor stocks helped lead the markets higher, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index jumping by 1.8 percent. Considerable strength was also visible among computer stocks, as reflected by the 1.7 percent gain posted by the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index.

Crude oil prices gave ground on Tuesday as efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict have sent positive signals of a ceasefire sooner than expected. West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery was down $0.55 or 0.93 percent at $58.77 per barrel.