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Sunday, April 7, 2013

Market Summary 6th April 2013


Singapore shares ended lower on Friday because of concerns over U.S. economic data and a selloff in Hong Kong shares.

A rally in Japan after its central bank opted for aggressive easing measures is "not tricking down into the Singapore market because the Singapore investors are just segregating these issues," IG Singapore market strategist Kelly Teoh said.

"They're trading in advance of the nonfarm payrolls figure that will be coming out in the U.S. tonight. We've had some quite negative jobless data that came in below expectations."

The 30-share Straits Times Index ended down 8.02 points, or 0.2%, at 3299.78, for a 0.3% decline for the week. Volume was 3.16 billion shares valued at S$1.46 billion--up from Thursday's 2.91 billion shares valued at S$1.13 billion. In the broader market losers outnumbered gainers more than two to one.

China-related shares were mostly lower in the wake of a sharp selloff in Hong Kong. The Hang Seng Index ending down 2.9% primarily on worries about bird flu in China.

Hongkong Land dropped 1.6% to US$7.30, likely tracking a sharp selloff in its Hong Kong-listed property peers. China shopping-mall operator CapitaMalls Asia shed 1.0% to S$2.00.

Singapore Airlines fell 1.4% to S$10.70 and Genting Singapore lost 2.4% to S$1.45, likely weighed by sharp falls in Hong Kong-listed travel and gaming stocks on the bird-flu outbreak concerns.

Commodity plays Noble and Wilmar, which rely in part on commodity demand from China, shed 0.4%-1.2%.

Japan real-estate plays tacked on gains, likely riding on the coattails of a sharp rally in Japan-listed real-estate plays. The J-REIT index ended up 5.2%.

Saizen REIT, which has a diversified portfolio in Japan, added 3.1% to S$0.199, while Global Logistic Properties was up 2.7% to S$2.65.

Myanmar play Yoma gained 6.1% to S$0.79 after joining forces with a George Soros fund and Jamaica's Digicel to bid for a Myanmar telecom license.