BEI INDEX SLIGHTLY SURGES EARLY FRIDAY

Jakarta, July 31 (ANTARA) - Foreign investors aggressively bought Indonesian stocks at the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) here early Friday, prompting the BEI index to surge.

The Composite Stock Price index of BEI closed 20.404 points or 0.89 percent higher to 2,318.539, and the LQ45 index went up 3.466 points or 0.77 percent to 454.375 in the late morning trading on Friday.

The BEI index's surge would continue on Friday afternoon as foreign investors aggressively entered the stock market, Pardomuan Sihombing, a research analyst of PT Paramitra Alfa Securities, said.

The foreign net buy position stood at Rp772.858 billion, comprising buy position at Rp1.212 trillion and the sell position at Rp439.315 billion.

According to Sihombing, the liquidity in the global market was still high and would flow to emerging markets, including Indonesia which has good economic prospects.

Besides, the positive sentiment at regional bourses also bolstered the BEI index on Friday morning.

The Hong Kong bourse with its Hang Seng indext closed 358.640 point or 1.77 percent higher to the level of 20,592.720. The Singapore's Straits Times index strengthened 11.410 point or 0.43 percent to the level of 2,647.600.

However, Sihombing said that the surge of the BEI index began to be limited because the surge was too high, and at was approaching weekend, so profit taking moves might happen.

Among shares which jumped includes Bumi Resources shares that climbed Rp300 to Rp2,725, Gas Negara shares which rose Rp100 to Rp3,450, Bank Mandiri shares which added Rp200 to Rp4,125 and Antam shares which advanced Rp75 to Rp2,200.

The blue chips' surge boosted the BEI index, although there were more shares which fell. In the late morning transactions, 100 shares lost, 77 shares gained and 53 shares remained static.

There were 85,168 transactions, with a total shares of 6,749 billion worth Rp5.634 trillion.