Singapore: Wall St's Tues blowout weighs on local stocks

TRADERS who bet that the Straits Times Index's Tuesday weakness foretold a plunge ahead on Wall Street would have got it right as the US market closed weaker during its Tuesday session. However, even though those traders would have got the direction right, few would have anticipated the size of Wall Street's plunge - the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.9 per cent and the S&P 500 1.7 per cent.

A sudden upward burst in the US dollar was blamed for Wall St's blowout, though underlying the move was probably the spectre of interest rates being raised sooner rather than later. Whatever the case, the outcome was yet more selling here that pulled the Straits Times Index 19.67 points down to 3,378.59 - its third consecutive fall this week.

Turnover, which has hovered around the S$1.2 billion mark for the previous few sessions, amounted to 1.4 billion units worth S$1.2 billion and excluding warrants, there were 114 rises versus 309 falls.

Index stocks that contributed the most to the fall were the banks and Jardine group. Genting Singapore also continued its recent downtrend on worries over its earnings in view of slower VIP traffic, the counter slipping S$0.005 to S$0.93 on volume of 31 million. In the buying-in market, the largest trade was one million Genting shares bought-in at S$0.945 per share.