Geopolitics, trade fears drag STI 0.5% lower for the week

A WHOLE bunch of factors, chiefly geopolitical tension following the scrapping of the US-North Korea key summit, hurt risk appetite in the Singapore bourse and drove the key Straits Times Index to finish the week on a limp note.

The benchmark fell 15.69 points or 0.44 per cent to close at 3,513.23 on Friday; week-on-week, the index lost 16 points or 0.5 per cent, logging its second consecutive weekly decline since the slide in global markets in February. Turnover came in at 1.5 billion shares worth S$1.03 billion versus Thursday's 1.5 billion shares worth S$1.2 billion with 159 counters up and 219 counters down. It didn't help that over at Wall Street, the Dow and S&P 500 indices closed moderately in the red for Thursday's session.

Other key Asian bourses put up a mixed showing with key indices in China, Hong Kong, Australia and South Korea seeing red, while Malaysia, Japan and Taiwan posted gains.