Midday

Midday: The STI currently -0.4% at 2790.7, up from 2779.3 earlier this morn. Most counters are down although Noble is a notable exception +1.8%, only news being its small divestment yday. Total local volume is approx 713.5m shares with total value of $502.2m The market saw a bit of a dip attributed to Chinese paper Xinhua which announced that China would not introduce a stimulus the size the same of that in 08. This dampened expectations and was suggested as the reason for this morning's weakness