Another week of wary China-watching for the market

ELSEWHERE in this issue of BT is a story on the week's outlook for Wall Street, which essentially says the US market has been stuck in a holding pattern for months as traders wait for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. This is an apt description because despite setting numerous all-time highs this year, US indices have not really performed; at last Friday's close, the S&P 500 was only 2 per cent up for 2015 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.75 per cent.

If Wall Street's return for the past seven months isn't great, then what of the local market's performance so far? We would hesitate to draw a parallel with the NYSE because the Straits Times Index (STI) has not really moved within a holding pattern; rather, it's probably more accurate to say the index has bounced around within a trading range that appears to be gradually sl…