More volatility as STI swings to different tunes

IT'S been a volatile year so far, with the Straits Times Index (STI) regularly undergoing daily double-digit rises and falls. In fact, daily moves of 20-plus points either way have now become fairly commonplace and traders hardly bat an eyelid when such swings occur.

On the face of it, the index's fortunes have been determined by ups and downs in oil prices and Wall Street, the language used by the US Federal Reserve in its post-meeting notes that may or may not hint at when interest rates might be raised, and occasionally by euro-centric concerns, mainly Greece.

This much is the conventional wisdom and most market reports refer to these factors, in various combinations, as being chiefly responsible for daily movements in the STI.