Japan Earthquake: Most share buy back by Singapore companies

- The number of Singapore companies that bought back shares yesterday from the open market came to 14, one of the most ever on a single day.

- New entrants include StarHub (even though its stock was the least affected by the crisis, among the STI constituents), Hai Leck (scaffolding, corrosion prevention services to the oil/natural gas/petrochemical industries).

- In the case of UOL, its purchase of 2,276,000 shares was the highest in the year-to-date.

- On Wall Street, stock prices rebounded strongly from the day's low after some "more positive" news came out of Japan, and Federal Reserve's upbeat statement after the latest FOMC meeting. Dow closed 137 points lower after having lost almost 300 points in early trading which was in sympathy with the rest of the world, especially Asia..

- Interestingly, General Electric, on of the biggest players in nuclear energy (having built 3 of the 6 reactors in Fukushima) was down "only" 1.6%. For sure, the global push into nuclear energy will likely suffer a major setback following the disaster.

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