STI slips 9 points over the week as volume dwindles

THE rise in oil prices, a bank reserve ratio cut in China and the European Central Bank (ECB) meeting on Thursday, which markets hoped would yield more quantitative easing, opened a window of opportunity for traders this week, encouraging them to adopt a "risk on" stance.

On Friday, the Straits Times Index responded to a 140-point jump in the Dow futures by gaining 19.74 points to 2,828.86, reducing its loss for the week to just nine points.

Turnover over the five days, however, dropped steadily from S$1.5 billion on Monday to 1.8 billion units worth S$919.7 million on Friday. A week ago on Friday, S$1.75 billion was done, so the drop over the week was about 47 per cent.