STI down 2% at the end of a volatile week

A DISASTROUS start, an even worse mid-week session, followed by an encouraging finish - this sums up the week just past, during which equity markets everywhere continued to display massive volatility, reportedly because of oil price weakness and large swings in China where prices are more likely to rise than fall.

The week kicked off with the Straits Times Index losing almost 38 points or 1.4 per cent, and even though it regained all of this on Tuesday when it rebounded by 45 points, the worst was res…