The air in the Jurong West and Boon Lay industrial heartlands felt a little heavier this week, didn’t it? It wasn’t just the humidity. It was the collective realization that the record-breaking high of 5,041.33 points we hit in late February wasn’t a permanent plateau, but a peak that required a breather . After weeks of “Straits Times Index (STI) fever,” the market finally met a reality check it couldn’t ignore: the sharp escalation of tensions in the Middle East. While retail investors were busy “chope-ing” seats at the 5,000-point table, the institutional “Smart Money” was already quietly rotating into defensive shells.
