Goodyear Indonesia, a leading manufacturer and distributor of tires in Indonesia, encountered an interesting, and yet alarming, fact as it is holding its Ramadan Trade-In program (3-18 June 2017) in shopping centers across Jakarta, Bogor and Surabaya. Under this program people can have the tires of their cars checked at the Goodyear booths. So far around 8,000 cars have been checked and apparently 60 percent of these cars had tires that were in a bad condition.

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Indonesia's Industry Ministry is optimistic that the nation's manufacturing activity will improve in the second quarter of 2017, primarily supported by rising production in Indonesia's automotive and food & beverage sectors amid the Ramadan month and subsequent Idul Fitri celebrations. This period always triggers a peak in consumption due to the many food parties (especially in the evening). Moreover, car and motorcycle sales tend to rise ahead of the Idul Fitri period when millions of Indonesians travel back to their places of origin to spend a few days with their families.

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Most US stocks rose modestly overnight (07/06) as gains in banking shares were stronger than the slump in energy companies that was caused by oil prices sliding 5 percent to a one-month low on Wednesday (07/06). This decline came after an unexpected increase in US crude inventories. Today (08/06) crude oil is slightly recovering. However, market participants are very careful at the start of trading on Thursday.

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There is still few enthusiasm of companies to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. So far in 2017 only eight companies went public (while there were two companies - Ciputra Surya and Ciputra  Property - that delisted from the exchange this year). However, considering Indonesia's economic growth is accelerating, while Standard & Poor's upgraded Indonesia to investment grade status (which unlocks funds from conservative institutional investors) there should emerge some more enthusiasm.

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