Mid-week index push provides main highlight

OTHER than the mid-week burst of window-dressing that came on the last day of May, Wall Street's all-time high on Thursday and the new word "covfefe" that was invented by US President Donald Trump, there were not that many features of interest in this week's trading.

Predictably, it was the banks, Singtel and the Jardine group which benefited most from the push that helped the Straits Times Index gain 32 points on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday the index drifted for most of the session but managed to add 4.05 points at the close at 3,240.01, bringing its gain for the week to 21 points or 0.65 per cent.

A look at the turnover figures is revealing - Monday and Tuesday's dollar values were S$669.4 million and S$613 million respectively, on Wednesday S$2 billion was done, on Thursday this had dropped sharply to S$1.3 billion, and on Friday 1.9 billion units worth only S$1 billion were traded.