THE Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Wednesday and Thursday was clearly the main focus of the week just past. Just before the meeting, markets everywhere rose in anticipation of the Fed keeping interest rates unchanged; once it was announced, an element of "buy in anticipation, sell on news" came into play.

This resulted in Wall Street first rising sharply on Tuesday and Wednesday ahead of the meeting but closing in the red on Thursday once the meeting's outcome was known. The same might be said of the Hong Kong and China markets which rallied on Wednesday and Thursday but ended only marginally higher.

The same applied to the local market. The Straits Times Index (STI) traded as high as 2,919 on Friday but was hit by a late selloff that took it from a gain of 24 points to a net loss of 16.22 points at 2,879.59. Jardine Matheson Holdings and Jardine Strategic Holdings, two of the three stocks which will be dropped from the index on Monday, were among the biggest losers. The third, Olam International, managed to gain two cents at S$2.04. Among other big losers were OCBC and Global Logistics Properties. For the week, the index lost eight points.