Singapore: Shares close weaker in low volume

PERHAPS the only firm conclusion which can be drawn from Wednesday's nondescript penultimate session of 2015 was that it fell within expectations - volume was weak, interest was absent and many players were said to be away for the holidays.

There was no reaction here to Wall Street's Tuesday jump though this was expected since the Straits Times Index (STI) on Tuesday had already risen ahead of the US market.

As a result, with the Dow futures trading in the red, the STI once again followed suit, falling into negative territory throughout the day. A rebound in the futures in the late afternoon meant the STI's loss was trimmed by more than half, the index ending a nett 2.71 points lower at 2,885.51.

Turnover was a poor 922.5 million units worth S$534 million, totals that were more in line with half-day session. Excluding warrants, there were 188 rises against 212 falls.

Of the 20 most actively traded stocks, 19 were priced below S$0.50. The one stock priced above S$1 was Singtel, which fell S$0.02 to S$3.68 on volume of 15.2 million.