Jakarta Index Opens Slightly Lower

Jakarta, Feb 13(Antara) - The Jakarta composite index fell slightly in the opening trade on Thursday on minimum positive sentiment from the regional markets. The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange was 0.06 percent lower at 4,493.64 points with the index of 45 most liquid stocks down 0.09 percent to 755.59 points. Chief researcher of Trust Securities, Reza Priyambada, said the rising trend of the BEI index was curbed by minimum positive sentiment in the region. "A number of market players tend to sell shares as they see no new positive sentiment," he said. Meanwhile the market players are awaiting an announcement of the result of Thursday`s monthly meeting of the Broad of Governors of Bank Indonesia about the central bank`s benchmark interest rate (BI rate). Observers, however, predicted the central bank would maintain its relatively high benchmark interest rate of 7.5 percent5. Meanwhile, Tim, a technical analyst from Mandiri Sekuritas said fairly good growth of the country`s economy gave greater strength to rupiah that contributed to easing pressure on the BEI index. "Considering that, the BE index has the potential to continue to be on the rise despite potential profit taking by some market players," Regional markets such as Hang Seng posted a decline of 0.51 percent in index to 22,171.80, with Nikkei index down 0.88 percent to 14,669.31 and that of Straits Times gaining 0.12 percent to 3,039.23 points.