Snippets.

Singapore shares drifted in negative territory yesterday but the selling was contained on reports that WHO was only classifying the SARS case here as “probable”. However, in the last 30 minutes of trading, the STI got clocked to its low of 1580.14 on confirmation by the Ministry of Health that the suspected SARS case was tested positive twice. The 42 points drop was the most dramatic since the 51 points fall in May this year. The intensity of the selling appeared to suggest some stop loss levels were triggered, leaving buyers with almost no chance to withdraw their buy orders from the queue. For every stock that rose 14 fell while 167 counters were unchanged. Turnover was 1.5bil shares with a value of $1.1m traded.

Was the selling overdone? We would tend to think so considering that it is one isolated case that the authorities appear confident of containing. Though yesterday’s sell-off creates some opportunity for sidelined buyers, the recovery will not be straight up in view of Wall Street’s overnight correction and also concern that more SARS-related news may unveil in the days to come. SARS- sensitive stocks like SIA, Star Cruise, SPH, UOB, DBS and OCBC were all impacted in the afternoon, with Keppel Corp being notably against the flow with a 10 cents rise to $5.35 on reports it had won a big contract from Petrobas.