The Singapore stock market on Friday wrote a finish to the two-day winning streak in which it had collected more than 40 points or 1.3 percent. The Straits Times Index now rests just above the 3,175-point plateau and it's looking at another soft start again on Monday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets in negative, with continued pressure likely on the technology shares. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.
The STI finished modestly lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares and industrial issues and trusts.
For the day, the index shed 11.15 points or 0.35 percent to finish at 3,176.51 after trading between 3,152.72 and 3,195.77.
Among the actives, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust rallied 1.08 percent, while CapitaLand Investment fell 0.40 percent, City Developments advanced 0.88 percent, Comfort DelGro shed 0.68 percent, DBS Group plummeted 9.19 percent, Genting Singapore stumbled 1.08 percent, Hongkong Land sank 0.70 percent, Keppel DC REIT slumped 1.20 percent, Keppel Ltd lost 0.43 percent, Mapletree Industrial Trust tanked 1.79 percent, Mapletree Logistics Trust plunged 2.24 percent, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation eased 0.15 percent, SATS declined 1.22 percent, Seatrium Limited jumped 1.32 percent, SembCorp Industries dropped 0.93 percent, SingTel gained 0.43 percent, Thai Beverage skidded 1.04 percent, Wilmar International added 0.59 percent, Yangzijiang Financial retreated 1.52 percent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding tumbled 1.69 percent and Emperador, Singapore Technologies Engineering and Mapletree Pan Asia Commercial Trust were unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is conflicted as the Dow opened higher on Friday and stayed that way, while the S&P and NASDAQ spent the entire session under water.
The Dow rallied 211.00 points or 0.56 percent to finish at 37,986.40, while the NASDAQ tumbled 319.49 points or 2.05 percent to end at 15,282.01 and the S&P 500 sank 43.89 points or 0.88 percent to close at 4,967.23.
For the week, the NASDAQ plummeted 5.5 percent, the S&P tumbled 3.1 percent and the Dow rose 0.1 percent.
The steep drop by the NASDAQ reflected heavy selling among shares of Netflix (NFLX) and AI darling Nvidia (NVDA). Reflecting the weakness in the sector, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dove by 4.1 percent to its lowest closing level since early February.
Banking stocks turned in a strong performance, driving the KBW Bank Index up by 2.9 percent. Interest rate-sensitive utilities stocks also moved notably higher amid a pullback by treasury yields, resulting in a 1.8 percent jump by the Dow Jones Utility Average.
Oil prices moved higher on Friday as geopolitical tensions rose following Israel's retaliatory attack on Iran. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May ended higher by $0.41 at $83.14 a barrel, although WTI crude futures shed about 3 percent in the week.
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