Jakarta Index Opens Higher On Monday

Jakarta, Nov 25 (Antara) - Jakarta composite share price index opened higher on Monday on technical factor, analysts said. The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) rose 11.42 points or 0.26 percent to 4,329.38 points with index of 45 most liquid stocks up 0.40 percent to 723.81 points. Samuel Sekuritas` analyst Benedictus Agung said technical factor pushed up the BEI index to a positive area after significant correction in the past three trading days. "The majority of markets in Asia strengthened in the opening trade on Monday following the gain recorded by the US market last weekend," Benedictus said Trust Securites` chief researcher Reza Priyambada said there were still possibility of market players selling shares curbing rising trend of the BEI index. "Market players tend to choose short term transactions taking profit when the share prices rose ," Reza said. However, gain recorded by the US market would have positive impact on BEI index at the start of this week, he said . "The BEI index is expected to move around 4,308--4,360 points today," he predicted. Regional markets such as Hang Seng recorded an increase of 0.13 percent in index to 23,727.26 points with Nikkei-225 index up 1.35 percent to 15,590.15 points and that of Straits Times gaining 0.11 percent to 3,176.16 points. Meanwhile, rupiah lost 13 points against the US dollar in interbank transactions in the first minutes of Monday`s trading . The Indonesian currency was changed hand at the level of 11,715 per US dollar compared with 11,702, the level recorded in the last weekend`s trade . "Rupiah weakened again after the market responded to result of last week`s meeting of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) that gave signal of financial stimulus tapering off," Reza said. In addition , the Chinese yuan and Japan`s yen also weakened following Chinese internal sentiment about falling manufacturing data and Japanese Central Bank internal sentiment restricting long term yield. Monex Investindo Futures` analyst Zulfirman Basir said domestic financial market players are still worried about possible cut soon by the Fed of its stimulus program. Last weekend, president of the Fed of Atlana Dennis Lockhart and President of the Fed of Kansas Ester George spoke about the possibility of tapering off decided in a meeting in December. In addition, investors are still worried by the continuing deficit in foreign trade and current account, high inflation and economic slowdown .