Including the 2.2% loss on April 9, the STI has shed a total of 14.8% in the last eight trading sessions, although the STI surged by some 243 points to 3,637.21 points when markets opened on April 10. The optimism is attributed to Trump’s 90-day pause for higher tariffs on 56 nations.
Amid the evolving trade tariffs situation, OCBC Investment Research’s Singapore strategist, Carmen Lee, recommends that investors should not “waste a crisis”. The situation has “created significant volatility for equity markets in the past few days,” Lee notes.
On April 7, the Singapore market saw the largest single-day decline since 2008 when the benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) plunged by 7.5%, just slightly behind the 8.3% decline in 2008. Other equity markets reacted similarly to the higher trade tariffs, she notes.
