Daily Markets Briefing: STI down 0.52%

Expect muted gains today.

According to OCBC, further slide on Wall Street overnight is expected to continue to weigh on local sentiment; the Nikkei is down 1.1% in early trade.

As before, we still see the STI making a gradual slide towards the initial 2850 support; breaking which, it could retreat further to 2800 before any good bargain hunting interest would emerge, OCBC said.

Here’s more from OCBC:

We again note that the overall volume has fallen back below 1b units traded yesterday; this mainly due to the Dec holiday effect, as well as lack of corporate developments/activities.

With crude prices continuing to new lows, local O&G stocks are likely to remain under pressure; although we note that some of them are already showing quite heavily oversold signals.

On the upside, we peg the initial resistance at 2900, ahead of 2931.