Daily Markets Briefing: STI down 0.07%

Expect local market sentiment to be fairly cautious.

The winning streak has ended for STI as it closed 2.00 points or 0.07% lower to 2842.62 on Thursday, taking the year-to-date performance to -1.39%.

According to OCBC, this came after US stocks closed lower, as a sharp drop in oil and telecommunications shares weighed on investors’ sentiment.

Only one of the S&P 500 industries ended higher, with Telecommunication Services (-2.01%) and Industrials (-0.60%) leading the declines while Health Care (0.50%) gained.

"Weakness on Wall Street overnight is likely to keep sentiments on the local bourse fairly cautious, limiting the near term upside," OCBC noted.

Here's more from the firm:

Gold for Dec delivery slipped US$2.40, or 0.19%, to close at US$1267.50/ounce while Dec Silver shed 11 cents, or 0.65%, to settle at US$17.55/ounce.

Overall volume dipped 4.5% with 1.8b units traded, and the total value dropped 0.4% to S$0.89b; while average value/unit rose 4.3% to S$0.48.