2014 S'pore market predictions: other than oil, more hits than misses

THIS may come as a bit of a surprise to many market observers but predictions made 12 months ago of how the Singapore market might perform in 2014 contain more hits than misses.

Or to put it differently, brokers and investment banks, when gazing into their crystal balls at the end of 2013, managed to correctly identify the major themes for 2014 - even if the recent crash in oil prices thwarted some of their predictions.

Apart from highlighting that markets would have to grapple with the end of the US Federal Reserve's quantitative easing (QE) support, the one common theme which stood out in almost all forecasts for Singapore equities was that valuations were undemanding but because growth would not be very strong, stock market gains would only be modest.