Jakarta Index And Rupiah Reverse Trend

Jakarta, Oct 22 (Antara) - The Jakarta composite share price index reversed its trend on Tuesday morning after three days of being on the rise since the US debt ceiling agreement. The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) opened 26.95 points or 0.59 percent lower at 4,551.23 points on profit taking. The index of 45 most liquid stocks also fell 0.89 percent to 766.87 points. "Technically the BEI index should remain on the rise still but profit taking by some investors in the past few days put pressure on the index," chief researcher of Trust Securities Reza Priyambada said. Head of Research Valury Asia Securities, Alfiansyah, said minimum new positive sentiment had added to profit taking pressure on the index. Alfiansyah said there has been shutdown threat in Europe although not as strong as in the United States but it could serve a negative sentiment in the market. Regional markets such as Hang Seng also recorded a 0.56 percent decline in index to 23,306.09 points with Nikkei-225 index down 0.07 percent to 14,682.71 points and that of Straits Times gaining 0.22 percent to 3,202.39 points. Rupiah also followed the declining trend losing slightly in value against the US dollar in interbank transaction. The currency traded at the level of 10,925 per dollar in the opening trade on Tuesday weakening from earlier level of 10,890. "The rupiah fall followed the trend in Asian market, but the domestic currency is relatively stable compared with other regional currencies," Reza noted. The pressure on rupiah came from negative sentiment from India, he said, adding India`s rupee fell on speculation that New Delhi would raise interest rate amid its economic slowdown. "The condition pushed up the US dollar especially as Japan`s yen is also under pressure as Japan`s export growth was not up to expectation," he said. Ariston Tjendra, the chief researcher of Monex Investindo Futures, said the US dollar rose amid speculation on improvement in the US employment issue. "However, the US dollar would not gain much as The Fed is expected to postpone its monetary stimulus cut until March 2014," he said.