(RTTNews) - The Singapore stock market has finished lower now in back-to-back sessions and in four of the last five trading days, dropping more than 80 points or 6 percent in the process. The Straits Times Index is clining to support at 1,700 points, and now investors are hopeful that the market will lift back into positive territory on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is bullish as the bargain hunters are expectedto come out in force after a couple of rough sessions have consigned the markets to lower trade. There were some weak economic and corporate data out of the United States - but not as bad as was expected, also lending a bit of positive sentiment. The European markets finished in mixed fashion with a downside bias, but the U.S. markets all closed firmly in the green - and the Asian markets are predicted to follow suit.

The STI finished barely lower on Thursday, tugged below the unchanged line by weakness in the banking sector. For the day, the index eased 2.79 points or 0.16 percent to close at 1,704.60 after trading between 1,697.28 and 1,720.37. Among the decliners, DBS was down 0.2 percent and United Overseas Bank shed 2.3 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is broadly positive as stocks showed a substantial turnaround over the course of morning trading on Thursday after showing some initial weakness. While the major averages were more or less rangebound for the remainder of the session, they still ended the day firmly in positive territory. While the early weakness came as traders reacted to some negative economic and corporate news, retail sales data that was not as bad as expected and some bargain hunting fueled the advance later in the day.

Stocks initially moved lower after the Labor Department’s weekly jobless claims report showed that first-time claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly jumped to their highest level in over twenty-six years in the week ended January 31. The report showed that initial jobless claims rose to 626,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 591,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to edge down to 580,000 from the 588,000 originally reported for the previous week.

Additionally, the Commerce Department’s monthly report on factory orders was released shortly after the market open and showed a bigger than expected 3.9 percent decrease in orders in December. This marked the fifth consecutive monthly decrease in orders.

In other news, Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Gary Stern spoke at the Capital City Partnership Annual Meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota on Thursday, offering a sliver of hope that actions by the Federal Reserve could help stabilize the financial markets. Although the economy is likely to remain in recession for at least two more quarters, Stern predicted that healthy growth would return by the middle of 2010.

The major averages ended the session firmly in positive territory, although off their best levels of the day. The Dow closed up 106.41 points or 1.3 percent at 8,063.07, the Nasdaq closed up 31.19 points or 2.1 percent at 1,546.24 and the S&P 500 closed up 13.62 points or 1.6 percent at 845.85.

In economic news, Singapore is on Friday scheduled to release FX reserves numbers for January, with analysts seeking a surplus of $167.6 billion. That’s down from $174.2 billion in December.

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Posted in Categories: Eurozone, Releases, Stocks, USA.

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