May was a largely forgettable month for the local stock market, with the Straits Times Index (STI) labouring to a 95 points or 2.7 per cent loss at 3,392 over the four weeks.
A bursting equity bubble in China and Hong Kong, unsureness over when the US will raise interest rates and Greece's ongoing financial woes were said to have provided the main backdrop, one which it has to be said was not particularly benign to equity investment.
If anything, the weak showing for the month only lent credence to the old saying "sell in May and go away". Which begs the question: if you sold in May and went away, do you return to buy in June?
Optimists would say "yes" and bank on the argument that conditions, having sunk as low as they have, surely have to improve from their present dire state.
After all, if liquidity has been weak for almost two years now, then surely there's only one direction it can go - up. With the STI now just 27 points in the black for 2015, the bottom must surely be close.
Moreover, there are plenty of positives to focus on such as the local market's niche as top international destination for Reits, the upcoming minimum trading price which would generate a fair bit of corporate activity and the STI's resilience in the face of plenty of overseas adversity.
Pessimists, on the other hand, might think otherwise.
In this camp would fall the majority of retail trading representatives (TRs) who, with a wry sense of self-deprecating humour founded on a perception that their welfare is of little consequence to officialdom, have been circulating a cartoon via Whats App that depicts a canoe with TRs seated at one end that is slowly submerging and officialdom seated on the other elevated end which is still afloat, the latter smugly declaring they're glad the holes are at the other end.
In the "glass is half empty" camp would be those who believe that after years of money pumping, all the US economy has to show is an alarming 0.7 per cent contraction in first quarter GDP growth announced on Friday, never mind the excuses (from officialdom) that this has to be due to bad weather.
These cynics would point out that when there's growth (albeit a small 2.2 per cent in the final quarter of 2014) officials are quick to take credit but when there's a large blip like Friday's news, it's the weather to blame.
It's a state of denial which TRs here would find familiar.
Pessimists might also look at the mounting problems in Greece as yet another indication not to buy in June and, to strengthen their position, they might also point out that the corrections witnessed last week in Hong Kong and China may not run their course.
Last but not least, even if the STI has lost almost all its gains for the year, there's no rule which says it cannot drop into the red for 2015.
For the holiday-shortened week ahead, we'd expect the short sellers to cover their positions in the early part.
The STI, having already plunged on Friday ahead of Wall Street's sell-off that day should rebound when trading resumes on Tuesday after the Vesak Day holiday on Monday.
Counterbalancing this however, would be activity in the Jardine stable, whose membership in the STI is now under threat following Friday's announcement of a new liquidity requirement of 0.1 per cent of issued shares, double the present 0.05 per cent.
It has to be said that this is long overdue and it'll be interesting to see how the market reacts to the possibility that Jardine Matheson, Jardine Strategic and Jardine Cycle & Carriage may have to be removed from the STI.
A fourth member, Hongkong Land, is actively traded and its status as an STI component appears safe.
For full listings of SGX prices, go to http://btd.sg/BTmkts
This article was first published on June 02, 2015.
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