STI up 78 points for the week, buoyed by Wall St

SINGAPORE Exchange's system breakdown on Thursday will surely dominate headlines and be the subject of conversation among industry players, but more important is that Wall Street's S&P 500 index has set four consecutive all-time highs this week - if it manages another record on Friday, that would make for a "perfect week", the first since 1998.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, in the meantime, rose to three consecutive all-time highs between Tuesday and Thursday, and the Nasdaq Composite was at its highest in 2016.

Buoyed by this performance, traders pushed the Straits Times Index up 78 points or 2.7 per cent over the week to 2,925.35, of which 18.43 points came during Friday's session when the local market played catch-up with the rest of the region after it had been closed for most of Thursday following SGX's system glitch.