STI Index

9 December 2006


STI for this week have going all time high as dealers said. They added market participants showed a strong appetite for semiconductor stocks.

The Straits Times Index closed up 26.13 points or 0.93 percent at 2,840.94, beating the previous record of 2,838.48 points set last Thursday. Overall volume traded was 1.38 billion shares. There were 344 gainers and 269 losers.

Strong gains in technology stocks followed news that private-equity firm Carlyle Group had bid for the world's largest chip packaging and testing company, Taiwan's Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc, for 5.46 billion US dollars, dealers said. They also noted the sector has lagged gains elsewhere in the market for most of this year. "It's only in the past week that they have started to catch up," a local brokerage dealer said, adding that technology stocks are typically strong year-end performers as consumer spending for electronic products peaks.

Chartered Semiconductor gained S$0.08 to S$1.40, STATS ChipPAC added S$0.10 to S$1.24, United Test and Assembly Center rose S$0.025 to S$0.755 and Global Testing Corporation was up S$0.025 to S$0.260. Venture Corp closed S$0.30 higher at S$14.10. Among blue chips.

Singapore Telecommunications rose S$0.01 to S$2.96, Singapore Airlines jumped S$0.10 to S$15.60, ST Engineering added S$0.02 to S$3.08 and Singapore Press Holdings rose S$0.06 to S$4.34.

Bank stocks were mixed with DBS Group Holdings S$0.30 higher at S$20.80, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation unchanged at S$7.20 while United Overseas Bank fell S$0.10 to S$18.80.

Keppel Corp advanced S$0.50 to S$S17.30. Among property stocks, CapitaLand and Keppel Land gained S$0.15 each to S$6.00 and S$6.70, respectively, while City Developments was unchanged at S$12.30.

Let's us watch the STI going for 3000.