THE start of the week before Christmas saw trading volume dwindle from last week's S$1.2 billion daily average to 1.9 billion units worth S$897.2 million. The banks have been the main index movers this year, and so it was again on Monday when the Straits Times Index (STI) dropped 24.78 points to 2,913.08, with falls in DBS, UOB and OCBC accounting for a combined 12 point loss. Excluding warrants, there were 167 rises versus 263 falls.

Brokers said that the drop-off in turnover was to be expected, given the impending holiday season and the sharp run-up of the past five to six weeks since the US elections. Monday's fall cut the STI's gain for the year to 31 points or 1.07 per cent.

The day's most active stock was movie firm Spackman which traded 110.5 million shares, but the day's most active counter was the Macquarie Bank structured call warrant on the Hang Seng Index with a 23,000 strike price and Jan 26, 2017 expiry that fell S$0.005 to S$0.041 on volume of 172 million. The underlying Hang Seng index closed 0.8 per cent lower at 21,832.