STI tops 2,900 mark in mixed session

AN overnight rise on Wall Street and probable month-ending window- dressing of certain key blue chips - or "portfolio rebalancing", if you prefer - on Wednesday helped push the Straits Times Index (STI) up 24.88 points to 2,904.02, taking it 22 points or 0.8 per cent into the black for 2016.

Wednesday also saw the latest Morgan Stanley Capital International index rebalancing come into effect. For the MSCI Singapore Index, SATS was added while Noble Group and Sembcorp Marine were deleted. However, both were then included in the MSCI Singapore Small Cap Index. Noble crashed S$0.013 or 7.6 per cent to S$0.159 on massive volume of 1.23 billion, and Sembcorp Marine closed with an S$0.085 or 5.7 per cent loss at S$1.395 on volume of 85.4 million.

A steep slide in oil prices, however, dampened sentiment somewhat, and this was reflected in an advance-decline score of 227 to 222 which suggested that the index's gains were narrowly focused and that the broad market did not follow.