THE Singapore market inched up on Tuesday, continuing a two-week run that has added almost 4 per cent to the bourse.

With United States markets closed overnight for the Presidents' Day holiday, there was not much to guide investors searching for market direction.

The benchmark Straits Times Index spent the session trading in a narrow range before managing to close at 3,070.78 points, an increase of 1.5 points or 0.05 per cent.

Market turnover was nothing to shout about, at only $870 million which was lower than Monday's $1.03 billion.

The bourse has been on a roll over the past fortnight, and the STI has lost value on only one of the last nine trading days. Its Tuesday closing value of 3,070.78 points was 3.7 per cent higher than its close on Feb 5, of 2,960.09.

Land transport operator ComfortDelGro Corp fell one cent or 0.51 per cent to $1.955 while there were no trades in its unit SBS Transit. Fellow transport company SMRT Corp lost half a cent or 0.48 per cent to $1.03.

Singapore's Parliament passed a Bill on Monday which could mean much heftier fines for SMRT and SBS Transit if there are future train disruptions.

The change raises the maximum penalty for a disruption, to 10 per cent of the annual fare revenue of a rail line. That could be many times higher than the current cap of $1 million for each incident.