Late push gives STI a 6.95-point gain

A RELATIVELY quiet session on Wednesday ended with a late push on the Straits Times Index that took it from just inside negative territory to a net gain of 6.95 points at 3,419.15, with the broad market excluding warrants recording 233 rises versus 177 falls.

Wall Street's Tuesday plunge probably weighed on sentiment, that fall coming after several key companies reported soft earnings because of the strong US dollar. Whatever the case, turnover here was 1.4 billion units worth S$1.2 billion, down from the S$1.4-1.5 billion totals seen earlier this week.

Among the banks, DBS ended S$0.01 down at S$20.02 on volume of 4.5 million. Macquarie Warrants, in its daily newsletter, said Macquarie Equities Research (MER) had on Tuesday released a report that downgraded DBS from "outperform" to "neutral" because of the impact of falling commodities prices, with a target price lowered from S$22 to S$21.