Heavy selling hits STI

THE bottom fell out of the local stock market on Tuesday, partly because of an impending change to the liquidity rules of the Straits Times Index (STI), but mainly for reasons unknown.

The only hypothesis dealers could offer was that the 51.36-point or 1.5 per cent plunge by the STI at 3,340.75 came ahead of a Tuesday collapse on Wall Street. (Movements here have often anticipated movements in the US market.)

Whatever the case, the fall took the STI into ne…