Singapore shares may lose steam in the week ahead after racking up gains on hopes of a global economic recovery, analysts said. The blue chip Straits Timex Index closed Friday at 2,238.21 points, up 317.93 points or 16.56 percent from last Thursday's close. Markets were closed last Friday for a public holiday.
Average daily volume was 3.08 billion shares worth 2.74 billion Singapore dollars (1.86 billion US) compared with 1.67 billion shares worth 1.26 billion dollars last week.
"The market has priced a fair bit of the positives in and now that a recovery is priced in, there (had) better be one," DBS Vickers strategist Yeo Kee Yan was quoted as saying by Dow Jones Newswires. DBS Group Holdings chairman Koh Boon Hwee said positive signs have emerged but cautioned against over-confidence given the severity of the downturn.
"What we see in many of our customers is that the deterioration has stopped getting worse, so I feel that we are at the bottom," he said at a news conference. "Going forward, we have reason to be reasonably confident... (but) we are not out of the woods yet."