New Week Starts with Strong Indonesian Rupiah and Climbing IHSG

At the start of the new week, Indonesia's benchmark stock index (Jakarta Composite Index or IHSG) was able to continue to climb, supported by positive Asian indices. Today, investors took advantage of discounted stocks in Asia as markets had fallen after the Federal Reserve's announcement last week that the quantitative easing program would be wound down further as well as a possible US interest rate hike in 2015 and 2016. However, the IHSG was also vulnerable to profit taking. Therefore, today's gain was limited.

On Monday (24/03), the IHSG gained 0.43 percent to 4,720.42 points. Popular stocks during today's trading day were Semen Indonesia, Matahari Department Store, and Bank Rakyat Indonesia.


Despite a lower HSBC manufacturing PMI for China, Asian markets, including China, were unaffected because investors prefered to react to an official of China's central bank who stated that there is a possibility that China's government will conduct monetary easing and other efforts to foster economic growth in the world's second-largest economy.

The appreciating rupiah exchange rate also caused positive market sentiments on today's Indonesia stock exchange. The rupiah strengthened because market players were content to hear that the Indonesian government and central bank (Bank Indonesia) are ready to face further US monetary tightening. Based on the Bloomberg Dollar Index, the rupiah appreciated 0.39 percent to IDR 11,380 per US dollar. Meanwhile, Bank Indonesia's benchmark rupiah rate (Jakarta Interbank Spot Dollar Rate, abbreviated JISDOR) appreciated 0.41 percent on Monday (24/03) to IDR 11,384 per US dollar.

| Source: Bank Indonesia

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