Just been catching up on the Singapore market action, and there's a pretty interesting consolidation pattern forming here. After that rough three-day slide where the Straits Times Index got hammered for about 80 points, we're seeing this back-and-forth movement that's honestly pretty typical when markets are trying to find their footing.

The STI closed Thursday just under 4,850, finishing at 4,846.56 after bouncing around between 4,827 and 4,877 throughout the session. Picked up 33.81 points or 0.70 percent on the day, which isn't huge but it's something. What caught my eye was the consolidation happening across different sectors - financials, property stocks, and industrials mostly moved higher, which suggests there's still some underlying bid in the market despite all the noise.

Looking at individual movers, you had some solid performers like Singapore Technologies Engineering jumping 4.43 percent, UOL Group surging 3.47 percent, and Hongkong Land climbing 2.52 percent. On the flip side, a few names stumbled, with SembCorp Industries down 0.70 percent and Yangzijiang Shipbuilding off 1.40 percent. Pretty mixed picture overall.

Here's the thing though - the consolidation we're seeing in Singapore is really just a reflection of what's happening globally. Wall Street got absolutely crushed on Thursday. The Dow tanked 784.67 points or 1.61 percent, NASDAQ dropped 0.26 percent, and the S&P 500 fell 0.56 percent. All of this because energy prices are going absolutely nuts.

Crude oil is the real story here. West Texas Intermediate spiked $6.51 or 8.7 percent to $81.17 a barrel on Thursday alone, and get this - it's already up 21.1 percent for the week. The trigger? Escalating tensions in the Middle East. Iran's claiming it hit a U.S. oil tanker in the Persian Gulf and is threatening to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which would be catastrophic for global energy markets. Add in some commentary from the Defense Secretary suggesting this conflict could drag on for up to eight weeks, and you've got markets pricing in a pretty serious supply risk.

So the consolidation we're likely to see in Singapore going forward is probably going to be driven by how this energy situation plays out. The market's clearly nervous - that's why we're seeing this choppiness instead of a strong directional move. Friday's expected to open underwater, which suggests traders are still cautious heading into the weekend with all this geopolitical uncertainty hanging over things.