Daily Markets Briefing: STI down 0.3%

Expect no boost from Wall Street today.

The Straits Times Index (STI) ended 9.76 points or 0.3% lower to 3204.79 on Tuesday, taking the year-to-date performance to +11.25%.

According to SGX's Daily Market summary, the top active stocks were Singtel, which gained 0.27%, OCBC Bank, which declined 0.29%, DBS, which declined 1.15%, ThaiBev, which declined 1.18% and UOB, with a 1.11% fall.

This came as US stocks closed moderately lower as energy shares weighed on Wall Street, helping to halt a seven-session streak of advances for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, OCBC Investment Research said.

Meanwhile, seven out of eleven S&P 500 Industries ended lower, with Energy (-1.31%) and Financials (-0.77%) leading the declines while Telecommunication Services (1.42%) and Utilities (0.33%) led the gains.

Here's more from OCBC Investment Research:

The weakness on Wall Street overnight could weigh on local sentiment this morning.

With today’s tone likely to be bearish, we could potentially see the 3200 key support being tested.

On the upside, we keep the initial hurdle at 3250, ahead of 3300.

Overall volume tumbled 35.8% with 1.1b units traded, and total value lost 9.1% to S$0.6b, while average value/unit rose 41.5% to S$0.53.