STI hazy as China concern clouds region

LOCAL shares caught a lungful of midweek ennui as markets across the region choked on a different kind of recurring transboundary concern: ongoing worries about a slowdown in China.

The benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) had enjoyed a brief respite above the 3,000-point level on Monday. On Wednesday, the dark clouds from Tuesday were clearly still in its system; it slouched a marginal 0.96 point downwards to 2,983.92 on Wednesday, following in the footsteps of a Wall Street slide.

The dip in Singapore was in line with the rest of Asia, which was blanketed in a miasma of red after the release of softer China inflation data that sparked concerns about deflation. Hong Kong fell 0.7 per cent, Shanghai tumbled 0.9 per cent and Tokyo's Nikkei she…