FOMC minutes give traders excuse to sell

THE minutes of the April US Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting that were released on Wednesday suggested that a June interest rate hike is increasingly likely, thus providing traders with the opportunity to resume short selling on Thursday.

This brought the Straits Times Index (STI) 37 points or 1.3 per cent down to 2,740.11 on Thursday, a not wholly-unexpected loss as observers had described Tuesday's 45-point jump as accounting for most of the short-covering.

Turnover on Thursday amounted to 1.2 billion units worth S$1.05 billion - average by recent standards. Of this, S$787.6 million or 75 per cent came from trading in the 30 STI members. Excluding warrants, there were 132 rises versus 269 falls.