Welcome to Markets Desk, your midday read on what's moving markets and money.
Singapore's Straits Times Index is poised to extend gains into Monday's session after snapping a three-day skid on Friday that had shaved nearly one hundred points, or roughly one point seven percent, off the benchmark. The index is sitting just below the five thousand six hundred ninety level, and sentiment is leaning constructive heading into the open.
Shifting to corporate capital allocation, SanDisk, Phillips sixty-six, and MetLife have collectively authorized twenty-seven billion dollars in fresh share buybacks, with SanDisk alone accounting for fourteen billion of that figure following a staggering five hundred percent surge in its share price through two thousand twenty-six. Buybacks at this scale signal management conviction that current valuations still leave room to run.
And in the growth equity space, Costco continues to draw attention as a compounding story worth revisiting. The warehouse retailer has more than doubled the S and P five hundred's return over the past five years, climbing north of one hundred percent, driven by membership loyalty, pricing discipline, and a business model that online competition has largely failed to disrupt.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
