The Singapore stock market has climbed higher in back-to-back trading days, soaring more than 80 points or 2.5 percent along the way. Now at a fresh 30-month closing high, the Straits Times Index now sits just above the 3,330-point plateau and it figures to see little movement on Monday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to higher, with support from technology stocks and crude oil companies expected to lead the way higher. The European markets were own and the U.S. markets were mixed and Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.
The STI finished modestly higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares and industrials.
For the day, the index gained 15.42 points or 0.47 percent to finish at 3,331.41 after trading between 3,309.52 and 3,332.92. Volume was 1.64 billion shares worth 1.33 billion Singapore dollars. There were 286 gainers and 190 decliners.
Among the actives, Ascendas REIT and Comfort DelGro both advanced 0.72 percent, while CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust spiked 2.48 percent, City Developments gained 0.42 percent, Dairy Farm International and Mapletree Commercial Trust both jumped 1.11 percent, DBS Group added 0.70 percent, Hongkong Land tumbled 1.93 percent, Keppel Corp soared 2.61 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust improved 0.58 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation was up 0.08 percent, SATS and Thai Beverage both climbed 0.76 percent, SembCorp Industries surged 2.99 percent, Singapore Exchange fell 0.21 percent, Singapore Press Holdings shed 0.43 percent, SingTel rose 0.40 percent, United Overseas Bank rallied 0.97 percent, Wilmar International sank 0.68 percent and Yangzijiang Shipbuilding, Genting Singapore, Singapore Airlines and Singapore Technologies Engineering were unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is mixed to higher as the major averages were directionless on Monday, finally finishing on opposite sides of the unchanged line.
The Dow dipped 21.42 points or 0.06 percent to finish at 35,089.74, while the NASDAQ surged 219.19 points or 1.58 percent to end at 14,098.01 and the S&P 500 gained 23.09 points or 0.52 percent to close at 4,500.53. For the week, the NASDAQ gained 2.5 percent, the S&P added 1.5 percent and the Dow was up 1.1 percent.
Traders reacted to much better than expected U.S. employment data from the Labor Department, which is good for economic recovery but spurred concerns for the outlook on interest rates.
Expectations for more aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve lifted bond yields. The yield on long term U.S. 10-year Treasury note rose about the 1.9 percent mark for the first time in more than two years.
In earnings news, Amazon, Snap, Pinterest, Salesforce.com, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Walt Disney, Chevron and American Express all had solid numbers.
Crude oil prices rose sharply on Friday and lifted the most active crude futures contracts to their highest close in over seven years. Rising concerns over supply disruptions fueled the rally, as did mounting tensions between Russia and Ukraine. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for March ended higher by $2.04 or 2.3 percent at $92.31 a barrel, the highest settlement since September 29, 2014. WTI crude oil futures gained more than 6 percent in the week.
Closer to home, Singapore will see January results for its private sector PMI from Markit Economics later this morning; in December, the score was 55.1.