Southeast Asian markets: Singapore tops gainers; foreigners lead buying

Some Southeast Asian stock markets rose on Friday, with property shares pushing Singapore up almost 1 percent to a two-week high and regional refinery stocks rising on hopes for better margins. Investors were less worried about the economic impact from the Japan earthquake, reviving risk appetite and pushing most sharemarkets in the region to their multi-week highs.
Singapore's Straits Times Index gained 4.6 percent for the week, the best in the region, ahead of Indonesia's 3.2 percent for the same period. The regional rebound came after selling pressure last week, sparked by fears over Japan's nuclear crisis, which sent most indexes near the oversold line. Singapore's 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) jumped from 33 last Friday to 54, still below an overbought 70 level.
"Technical signs also show the worst should be over with the monthly MACD, which had threatened to cut its signal line, starting an upturn today while the daily is firmly up and weekly flattens out," Singapore-based broker AmFraser Securities said.
Foreign investors led the buying in most regional stocks. Indonesia gained $88 million inflows this week to Thursday, after the $43.7 million outflows of the week before, Thomson Reuters data showed. Thailand posted $105 million inflow to Thursday, after a $58 million outflow of the previous week, the exchange said.
Asian stocks rose on Friday as optimism about upcoming company earnings encouraged foreign buyers back into Asian markets, and the dollar retreated as investors sold the low -yielding currency in favour of riskier assets. In Singapore, property stocks led gainers, with developer CapitaLand up 0.9 percent and City Developments up 3 percent.
The sector was hit recently amid weak market sentiment due to the turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa and concern over Japan's nuclear issues. Refineries were also a bright spot in the region, with Malaysia's Esso Malaysia up 8.9 percent and Philippine oil refiner Petron Corp up 3.8 percent. Thai top oil refiner Thai Oil surged 3.4 percent, by 0909 GMT.
"Refineries should enjoy an uptrend in refining margin throughout 2011 and the second quarter of 2011 gross refining margin is expected to further increase quarter on quarter," Bangkok-based broker KGI Securities said in a research note.