Noble, Yeo Hiap Seng and Tuesday's surge main features for week

A SURGE in volume on Tuesday most probably because of month-end window-dressing, a play on food and beverage stocks led by Yeo Hiap Seng (YHS), and a focus on Noble Group after its chief executive officer resigned early in the week and the company on Friday announced a rights issue - these were the main features of interest for the past week during which the Straits Times Index (STI) managed a seven-point rise to 2,809.23.

The burst of interest on Tuesday took turnover that day to S$2 billion and involved mainly the banks and other large index stocks. The STI that day rose 38 points but lost all of this by the end of the session as traders focused on weakness in the Dow futures and Europe. Daily business since then has dropped drastically - on Friday when the STI rose 14.14 points, only 962 million units worth S$741 million was done.

YHS's meteoric jump of S$0.275 or 21 per cent to S$1.56 from Monday to Thursday was accompanied by a query from the Singapore Exchange (SGX), to which YHS replied that it did not know why its shares were in play.