Cautious session ahead of FOMC meeting

TRADING on Wednesday crawled to a virtual standstill as players waited for the outcome of the latest US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting which would be known on Thursday morning, local time. The Straits Times Index spent the day tracking the Dow futures and Hong Kong, eventually finishing 7.88 points weaker at 3,218.07.

Perhaps more telling was that volume came to 1.9 billion units worth S$824 million, the lowest since S$799 million traded on Aug 28. Excluding warrants, there were 182 rises versus 203 falls.

There were few features of interest other than activity in familiar names such as Rowsley, QT Vascular and Blumont. Shares of logistics management service providers Cogent Holdings jumped S$0.055 or 6.1 per cent to S$0.955 on volume of 2.5 million, drawing a query from the Singapore Exchange.