STI down 1.5% amid fall in Dow futures

THE closure of China's market on Thursday and Friday to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II may have helped ease pressure on the Straits Times Index (STI) on Thursday, but it didn't help on Friday when the STI dropped 42.62 points or 1.5 per cent to 2,863.81 in tandem with a slide in the futures contract on the Dow Jones Industrial Average ahead of the release of US August jobs data.

The only consolation - if it can be called that - was that the selling came in weak volume of 1.2 bil…