Jakarta Index Opens Higher

Jakarta, Oct 17 (Antara) - The Jakarta Composite share price rose 0.73 percent in the opening trade on Thursday on US agreement to raise their debt ceiling. The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) opened 32.89 points higher at 4,525.15 points with the index of 45 most liquid stocks up 1.11 percent to 765.68 points. Head of Research of Valbury Asia Securities Alfiansyah said here Asian market indexes including that of BEI followed the US market index that rose as a result of the agreement to raise the US borrowing limit. "For the time being an agreement to end the partial government shutdown and to raise the debt ceiling has been reached," Alfiansyah said. Failure to reach the agreement would have caused extensive damage to the financial markets, he said. Samuel Sekuritas`s analyst Benedictus Agung said the US agreement also contributed to a 1 percent rise in the world oil price to US$102.3 per barrel. Meanwhile the domestic market players are still awaiting and monitoring the reports of financial performance of listed companies on the BEI for the third quarter of this year. Regional markets such as Hang Seng recorded a decline of 0.25 percent in index to 23,285.37 points with Nikkei-225 index gaining 1.13 percent to 14,630.86 points and that of Straits Times up 0.74 percent to 3,197.13 points. Meanwhile, rupiah also opened stronger gaining 180 points against the US dollar in the opening trade on Thursday . The currency traded at the level of 11,015 per dollar in interbank transactions strengthening from the earlier level of 11,195. "Rupiah that weakening yesterday to the level of 11,195 per dollar regain some of its lost value this morning," Rangga Cipta, a financial market observer from Samuel Sekuritas, said. Rangga said the rupiah rose in value amid the falling value of the US dollar against the majority of currencies in the world. After the US sentiment brought about by the debt ceiling agreement, the focus of the market attention is back on the monetary stimulus of the US central bank, he said. The market will speculate on when the stimulus will start to taper off, he added. "The market players will address themselves more to US economic data, the replacement of Bernanke as the governor of The Fed toward the end of this year and the tendency of the policy of his replacement Yellen ," he said. He predicted that rupiah would mover around the levels of 10,900--11,100 per dollar on Thursday. Chief researcher of Monex Investindo Futures, Ariston Tjendra, said in addition to the positive sentiment from the United States, the market`s optimism with Chinese economic growth also contributed to placing the currencies of emerging economies in positive area.