Profit-taking and US tech sell-off drag STI down 0.7%

A RALLY-AND-PAUSE play unfolded in the local bourse on the back of profit-taking after earlier gains and an overnight sell-off in US stocks due to weaker tech earnings. The downbeat tone led the Straits Times Index (STI) to snap a three-day winning streak on Friday, falling 24 points or 0.71 per cent to finish at 3,330.75.

Week on week, the STI gained 16.6 points or 0.5 per cent, buoyed by the earnings season in Singapore which came into full force and seemed to have effortlessly kept the index above the psychological 3,300 mark.

Ahead of advanced estimates of second-quarter growth out of the US, and earlier gains over the week, other major Asian markets closed mixed on Friday. Japan's Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 0.6 per cent while China's Shanghai Composite climbed 0.1 per cent.