STI inches up 0.45% as uncertainties loom

LIKE a cautious driver lost in a foreign land, the Singapore stock market continued to creep along slowly in a rental car while trying to figure out directions printed in a strange language on a map that cannot be folded properly.

Such is the reality facing Singapore investors these days. With a crisis in Greece and a selloff in China heaping doubt into investors' outlook, the Straits Times Index (STI) gained a modest 0.45 per cent, or 14.89 points, to close at 3,342.73 on Friday.

The STI improved just 0.6 per cent over the week, struggling to make any meaningful move in either direction but sideways. Over the past four weeks, the index has traded within a range …