Daily Markets Briefing: STI up 0.83%

Don’t expect much of a boost today.

The Straits Times Index (STI) ended 26.09 points or 0.83% higher to 3163.52, taking the year-to-date performance to +9.82%.

The top active stocks were DBS, which declined 0.05%; Keppel Corp, which gained 3.47%; Noble, which closed unchanged; Singtel, which declined 0.25%; and CapitaLand, with a 2.19% advance.

OCBC Investment Research said US stocks retreated to close lower, giving back some of the previous day’s Federal Reserve-inspired gains as a fall for healthcare and utilities stocks pushed the market into negative territory.

Meanwhile, seven out of eleven S&P 500 industries ended lower, led by Utilities (-1.09%) and Healthcare (-0.90%) whilst Financials (0.31%) led the losses.

Here’s more from OCBC:

The muted showing on Wall Street overnight is unlikely to provide much of a boost to the local bourse today.

Following STI’s 0.8% gains yesterday, we peg the immediate resistance at 3180, ahead of 3200 for now; on the downside, we set the immediate support at the 3150 resistance-turned-support, ahead of 3100.

Overall volume jumped 20.4%, with 2.7b units traded, and total value rose 30.1% to $1.5b, whilst average value/unit added 8.1% to $0.56.