STI dips 0.8% over the week on US uncertainty

THROUGHOUT the week, the Straits Times Index moved in near-perfect lockstep with the Dow futures while punters expended their energies on penny stocks.

Anticipating what Wall Street might do is to be expected because asset markets everywhere are now hostage to whatever economic and political strategies the new US administration aims to pursue, and Wall Street is perhaps the best gauge of the impact of those policies - even if they benefit America to the exclusion of the rest of the world.

So it was on Friday when the STI finished 2.14 points weaker at 3,041.94. The futures contract, however, bounced up into positive territory at 5pm.