The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) expects five more initial public offerings (IPOs) before the end of this year. These companies are the Blue Bird Group, Soechi Lines Indonesia, Imack Pratama Industri, Intan Baruprana Finance, and Karisma Aksara Mediatama. The IPO of Blue Bird, known for its taxi services, is the most awaited one. The company is expected to sell 20 percent of its enlarged capital to the public and aims to raise about USD $450 million, making it one of the largest IPOs on the IDX since Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur in 2010.

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Indonesian car sales, an important indicator to measure consumer confidence and domestic consumption, surged 24.1 percent (year-on-year) to 96,728 vehicles in August 2014. However, this growth pace is heavily influenced by public holidays and thus does not signal a marked improvement in Indonesian consumer confidence. In August last year, Indonesian car sales fell because of the limited amount of working days amid the Lebaran holiday (Idul Fitri), causing reduced production and distribution of cars and motorcycles.

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Despite some concern about inflation, the US Federal Reserve stated that it will keep interest rates close to zero. The central bank announced this after the two-day policy meeting (Federal Open Market Committee, FOMC). Ahead of the meeting, market participants had increasingly speculated about the chance of sooner-than-expected US interest rate hikes as US economic data has generally been positive (including 4.2 percent GDP growth in the second quarter and weekly jobless claims that declined to near record lows).

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Low cost carrier Indonesia AirAsia, the Indonesian unit of Malaysia's AirAsia, carried 4.08 million air passengers in the first half of 2014, a growth of 12 percent from the same period last year (3.64 million passengers). However, this growth figure failed to achieve the company’s initial target as it had to reduce flights and routes in an effort to cut back on expenses amid high operational costs. Although the firm managed to pass on part of expensive fuel costs to passengers (fuel surcharge), operational costs for specific routes are high.

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