STI from green to red; down 13 pts to 3321

Wah, leave home green green, come home red red. That pretty much describes STI today. STI closed down 13 pts (0.41%) to 3321 despite Dow marvellous performance last night when it closed up 247 pts. STI volume is 2.5 billion, much more than yesterday's 2.2 billion.

Construction counters made a brief rally in the morning before losing some of it gains by market close. Lianbeng leads the pack and brought investors interest back into construction play. But overall market sentiment wasn't good, so in the end also lose steam. Tried to queue to sell lianbeng at 0.490 but nobody wants to buy from me :(

Straits asia really hit upper trendline, and went down. 1.38 support did held and the stock even rebounded intraday from that point before coming down again to close at 1.39. Actually the charts look pretty decent, because the price hit 20 days ema and rebounded off from that. Need more time to see how it all plays out.

Swiber announced today that it acquired 4 vessels at the cost of US$70.6 million. Details are here. Wow, their action so fast. Just recently they placed out bonds to raise capital so that they can enlarge their fleet size and today they said they acquired it already. Fast and efficient management :) They mentioned that in order to accommodate its phenomenal growth, Swiber had increased its fleet of vessels from 11 to 20, comprising of 9 tug boats, 9 barges, 1 crane barge and 1 jack up barge. There are a total of 13 vessels currently under construction/conversion. With the new addition of 4 vessels, it'll bring Swiber's fleet size to 36 by 1QFY09.

US going to release GDP and jobless claims tonight, both of which will be watched closely by investors over there. Ben will also make some speech tonight which will be scrutinized for the slightest hint of rate cut in september. Dow's future isn't pretty, it's -50 as of now. Europe mostly green (slightly).