STI MARKET REVIEW - 1st Oct 2015

STI MARKET REVIEW :

Singapore benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) opened at 2,800.54 points, up 9.65 points or 0.35 per cent, after US stocks gained the previous night and ahead of the release of China's official purchasing managers' index (PMI) data, a manufacturing gauge and ended 11.51 points or 0.41% higher to 2772.36. STI came off from its intra-day peak of 2799.80 and low of 2772.36

Singapore stocks posted gains midday on better-than-expected economic data out of China. China's official Purchasing Managers' Index climbed to 49.8 in September, compared with a median estimate of 49.7 in a Bloomberg poll, as well as an August reading of 49.7.

LOCAL BOURSE

Singapore home prices dropped for an eighth quarter, matching the longest losing streak in 13 years, as tighter mortgage curbs cooled demand in Asia's second-most expensive housing market.
An index tracking private residential prices fell 1.3% in the three months ended Sept. 30 from the previous quarter. The slump was the most since June 2009, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

Market forecast:

STI is expected to be positive tomorrow as China’s official Purchasing Managers' Index has come better than expected. STI has the support level of 2778. STI has its resistance at 2828.

STI COUNTER SPECIFIC NEWS

• Singtel's Thai associate Advanced Info Service Public Company Ltd has submitted for arbitration, on Sept 30, a claim for 70 billion baht (S$2.7 billion) from Thai state-owned telco TOT Public Company Ltd.
• QT Vascular has successfully defended itself against a patent infringement lawsuit filed by another medical company- AngioScore.
• ST Engineering CEO will retire next year.
• Hong Leong Asia expects to post a loss for its third quarter and nine months ended Sept 30.

GLOBAL FACTORS AND WORLD INDICES:

• European shares rose on Thursday, buoyed by a further rebound for mining and trading company Glencore after a painful sell-off earlier in the week and bid talk for German salt and fertilizer company K+S
• Malaysian shares closed higher on Thursday, with the Kuala Lumpur Composite Index gaining 12.89 points to 1,633.93. Some 1.52 billion lots, valued at RM 1.82 billion, were traded. Gainers out numbered losers 465 to 306.
• Australian shares closed higher for a second session on Thursday, continuing to recover from a recent slide to a two-year low with the help of solid gains in the financial sector. The S&P/ASX 200 index put on 1.8 per cent, or 90.5 points, to 5,112.1, pulling further away from a trough of 4,918.4 set on Tuesday. The index has gained nearly 4 per cent in the past two sessions.