THE United States Federal Reserve's surprise decision to start tapering its QE3 bond-buying programme was the main feature of the week just past as it led to a "relief rally" on Wall Street which pushed the major US indices to new all-time highs.

The response in Asia was tepid - Hong Kong and China stocks fell, while the Straits Times Index hardly budged on Thursday.

In yesterday's session, a possible early window dressing-led rebound in index heavyweights SingTel and the banks helped add 24.25 points to the index at 3,094.48, bringing its gain for the week to 28 points or 0.9 per cent. The STI is still 73 points or 2.3 per cent down for the year to date.