Singapore shares close higher for week - was it month-ending window-dressing?

OTHER than the Singapore Exchange announcing it is in exclusive talks to buy London's Baltic Exchange and oil prices rising above US$50 per barrel for the first time in seven months, there was not much else to talk about in the past week.

Granted, the Straits Times Index managed a third weekly rise, this time by 37 points or 1.3 per cent to 2,802.51, but you wouldn't know it from the deathly silence in trading rooms and from conversations with trading representatives. There's also the possibility that since most of this rise came on Friday when the index jumped 29.2 points, month-ending window-dressing could have played a part.

Then there's liquidity - or rather, the lack of it. Friday's rise came with the week's best volume done - 781 million units worth S$916.1 million, of which S$659 million or 72 per cent was done in the 30 index components.