Jakarta Index Up Slightly

Jakarta, Feb 19 (Antara) - The Jakarta composite index rose slightly 0.07 percent to 4,559.49 points in the opening trade on Wednesday morning. The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) was still on the rising trend on improved condition of domestic economy, analysts said. The index of 45 most liquid stocks also rose slightly 0.11 percent to 767.32 points. "Improvement of the micro economic data allowed the BEI index to stay at positive area despite shares being overbought," HD Capital`s analyst Yuganur Wijanarko said. He said trade surplus in December, 2013, increase in the country`s foreign exchange reserves and fairly strong economic growth, still provide positive sentiments in the market. The market players, however, need to watch out the impact of possible profit taking as the prices of many shares have increased quite highly, he said. Kresna Securities` analyst, Etta Rusdiana Putra, said domestic sentiment is still positive and strong, pointing to 2 percent deficit in the balance of payments in the last quarter of 2013, much better than the deficit of 3.8 percent of the GDP in the previous quarter. He also noted that foreign capital still is flowing into the country`s stock market Based on data available from BEI, so far this year, foreign investors recorded net buy of Rp6.35 trillion . However, short term selling pressure is strong putting a brake on upward move of the BEI index , he said, predicting that the BEI index would hover around 4,530-4,600 points on Wednesday . Regional market such as Hang Seng recorded a 0.26 percent increase in index to 22,646.18 points with Nikkei index down 0.67 percent to 14,743.57 and that of Straits Times gaining 0.67 percent to 3,091.28 points. Meanwhile rupiah, gained against the US dollar in inter-bank transaction in the first minutes of trading on Wednesday. The currency traded at the level of 11,805 per dollar strengthening from the level of 11,873 per dollar earlier. Chief researcher of Monex Investindo Ariston Tjendra said the US dollar tended to weaken against the majority of global currencies including rupiah ahead of the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on the Fed financial stimulus. "The result of the meeting would be released on Thursday and the report is expected to bring about positive sentiment to the financial markets in developing nations," Ariston said He said the market players are awaiting the result of the meeting as the global financial market wanted to know the decision made on the financial stimulus. "If the Fed still was worried over low inflation rate and false decline of unemployment , it would not be expected to be aggressive in trimming its stimulus," he said, adding ,"this would result in further fall in dollar value." He said, domestically, encouraging report of economic data released since since early this month sill have positive effect on the market psychologically. He predicted rupiah would trade at the level of 11,760-11,890 per dollar on Wednesday.