Oil price, Wall St, Greek debt main drivers this week

THE direction of the Straits Times Index (STI) this week was determined largely by external events, ranging from movements in oil prices and Wall Street to Greece's debt negotiations with the European Central Bank (ECB). Blue chips which supplied most of the fuel for daily moves in the STI included the three local banks, Singtel, Keppel and the Jardine group - in other words, more or less the same group which has driven the index for the past six months or so. Daily volume was regularly just above S$1 billion - decent enough when compared with business done in December and January but not spectacular if a longer time frame is used.

In Friday's session though, the STI managed a 24.78 points rise to 3,431.36 points in response to Wall Street's Thursday rally but with a slightly different mix of index gainers - Singtel and Noble Group were the main contributors, their gains pushing the index up a total of nine points. The broad market did not really follow suit as there were only 228 rises versus 170 falls throughout. The US market's Thursday rise was reported to be because of a rise in oil prices and news of Pfizer's purchase of Hospira for US$16 billion.

Among the banks, OCBC on Friday rose S$0.07 to S$10.56 on volume of 2.8 million. Macquarie Warrants (MW) in its daily newsletter said Macquarie Equities Research (MER) has maintained its "neutral" recommendation with a target price of S$10. "MER remains guarded on the value realization from the Wing Hang Bank (WHB) acquisition (by OCBC)," said MW.