STI at 7-year high but penny stocks rule again

THE Straits Times Index may have risen 12.01 to 3,484.39 on Monday, its highest closing in slightly more than seven years but you wouldn't know it speaking to dealers since the action and excitement was mostly in churning penny stocks - the lower priced, the better.

So it was that the more relevant numbers to describe how Monday's session went was perhaps not so much the STI's move but instead turnover - 3.4 billion units worth S$1.3 billion was traded for a average value per unit of S$0.38. Excluding warrants there were 307 rises versus 187 falls. Volume done in the 30 STI components was just S$192 million, only 1…