Indonesia Stock Market: Joining Regional Rally or Late Sell-Off?
After Indonesia's markets have been closed for one full week due to the Idul Fitri holiday, they are back open today (11/07). Because of last week's holiday, Indonesia's stock market has not experienced the sell-off that occurred in other markets in the week of 4 - 8 July. This sell-off followed a relief-rally in global markets after the Brexit vote decision: although shortly after Brexit, global shares gained on central bank's stimulus hopes, the sell-off emerged one week later as investors started to be concerned about the impact of Brexit and the economic fundamentals of Europe.
Indonesian markets being closed when the global sell-off emerged could mean that Indonesia is still to see a flight to safety today, especially now commodity prices, led by crude oil (as US drilling rises), have shown some weakening over the past days. On the other hand, however, Asian markets have started the new week very positively on Monday morning, and this should cause positive market sentiments hence supporting Indonesian assets. This should mean that Indonesia skips last week's sell-off for now (but at a later occasion when market sentiments turn negative, Indonesian assets should be hit harder than other assets, a late sell-off reaction).
Positive market sentiments in Asia on Monday (11/07) are caused by a strong US jobs report - released on Friday (08/07) - that managed to curtail fears on the economic health of the USA and managed to push US stock higher at the end of last week. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 1.4 percent, the S&P 500 added 1.5 percent, while the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.6 percent last Friday. The US economy added 287,000 jobs in June 2016, beating forecasts. However, the data are not strong enough to cause renewed speculation about a Fed Funds rate hike. A delay in monetary tightening in the world's top economy is positive for riskier - yet higher-yielding - assets (emerging market assets including Indonesia).
Japanese stocks are in deep green territory after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling coalition won a landslide victory in the upper house, giving it the power to potentially revise Japan's post-war pacifist constitution. By 08:20 am local Jakarta time, the Nikkei 225 Index was up a whopping 3.09 percent.
Indonesia's stock market opens at 09:00 am local Jakarta time. We expect it to follow the positive performance of other Asian markets today. However, when market sentiments turn negative (possibly somewhere later this week) Indonesian assets will be affected harder as they skipped the sell-off that emerged last week.