SINGAPORE: Singapore stocks tumbled by the most among developed markets last month as investors pulled cash from Southeast Asia on concern about the future of global stimulus. Singapore's Straits Times Index, the benchmark gauge for the region's biggest market, dropped 7.5% in the 10 days through Aug 28, its longest losing streak since 2002. The gauge slumped 6% in August, the worst performance among the world's developed equity markets. Jardine Cycle & Carriage Ltd, the largest shareholder of Indonesia's PT Astra International (ASII), and commodities trader Olam International Ltd led declines. Stocks in Southeast Asia sank faster than global equities on signs regional economic growth is slowing and as Federal Reserve policy makers prepare to reduce United States bond buying that had prompted investors to buy riskier assets. Investors pulled $2.2 billion from Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines in August, after plowing US$6.8 billion into the markets in 2012, data compiled by Bloomberg show. "Singapore is a barometer for Southeast Asia," Wellian Wiranto, Singapore-based Asian investment strategist at Barclays Plc's wealth-management unit, said in an interview on Aug 28. "Choppiness elsewhere brings ripples here. Investors are probably concerned about the risk of contagion amid capital outflows from neighboring markets like Indonesia and the Philippines." BN