ONCE again, it appears that "bad economic news is good for stocks". Wall Street has rebounded strongly since the release of a weak September jobs report last Friday, as this suggests that the US Federal Reserve might not raise interest rates any time soon.

On Wednesday, a 130-point surge in the Dow futures contract helped push the Straits Times Index (STI) up for a third consecutive session, this time by 64.4 points or 2.2 per cent to 2,961.81. The STI has now risen 169 points or 6 per cent since the start of the week.

Leading the way were the three banks, and in keeping with daily trading over the past fortnight, the bulk of dollar volume was done in index stocks - the 30 STI components contributed S$1.2 billion or 75 per cent of the entire market's S$1.6 billion.