Indonesian Share Price Up

Jakarta, Sept 7 (ANTARA) - The Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) opened trade on Friday morning recording a 0.7 percent increase in prices on encouraging report from Europe. The BEI composite share price index gained 28.73 points to 4,131.59 points after the European Central Bank (ECB) announced a plan to buy sovereign bonds. The index on 45 most liquid stocks rose 7.31 points or 1.31 percent to 710.84 points. "Asian markets also reported gains this morning following significant strengthening of the global market last night," Samuel Sekuritas` analyst Adrianus Bias said here on Friday. The global market strengthening last night was boosted by the decisions of the ECB to buy unlimited amount of bonds in the European Union, Adrianus said. He said ECB will buy EU bonds with maturities in 1 to 3 years from the secondary market to keep the effective bond interest rate low. The yields on Italian, Spanish and French sovereign bonds have dropped significantly on announcement of the purchasing plan, he said. He said the exchange-traded fund (ETF) of Indonesia in the US stock markets also gained 1.9 percent last night. With the global rally, the BEI index is expected to gain further on Friday, he said. Meanwhile, Sinarmas Sekuritas` analyst James Wahjudi also said the results of the ECB meeting on monetary policy gave positive sentiment that raised the BEI index. Regional markets recording gains included Hang Seng with index up 1.79 percent to 19,552.25 pints, Nikkei-225 with index rising 1.65 percent to 8,823.49 points and Straits Times with index strengthening 0.62 percent to 3,006.70 points.