Singapore: STI slides despite China bounce

A rebound in China and Hong Kong failed to stem the bleeding here as the Straits Times Index on Thursday fell 17.59 points to 3,267.40. Volume, which spiked up to S$1.6 billion during Wednesday's 56-point rout, settled down to a more familiar - and weak - level at 1.3 billion units worth S$1.2 billion. Of this, S$764 million or 64 per cent was generated by trading in the 30 STI components.

Over in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index ended a volatile session about 3.7 per cent higher while in China, the Shanghai Composite managed a 5.8 per cent rise.

Possibly a factor weighing on sentiment here was an overnight plunge on Wall Street where worries about a crashing China stock market on Wednesday outweighed any positive impact from the minutes of the Federal Reserve's June meeting which showed that members wanted more evidence of an economic recovery before raising rates.

Within the STI, Singtel has probably played the biggest role over the past week in shifting the index. On Thursday, the counter's S$0.07 fall to S$4.26 on volume of 21.1 million cut almost 7 points off. The broad market was not as weak as the index's fall suggested - excluding warrants, there were 217 rises versus 209 falls.