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Jakarta Post

Stocks, rupiah happy with new ministers

Handover: Sri Mulyani Indrawati (left) and Bambang Brodjonegoro shake hands at the ministerial handover ceremony at the Finance Ministry on Wednesday in Jakarta

Stefani Ribka and Prima Wirayani (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Thu, July 28, 2016

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Stocks, rupiah happy with new ministers

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Handover: Sri Mulyani Indrawati (left) and Bambang Brodjonegoro shake hands at the ministerial handover ceremony at the Finance Ministry on Wednesday in Jakarta. Sri Mulyani will succeed Bambang to become the nation’s finance minister, while Bambang will lead the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas). (JP/Donny Fernando)

Euphoria over the new economic team sent the Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) and the rupiah into positive territory on Wednesday.

The JCI was up by more than 1.1 percent during the intraday trading before easing by 0.9 percent at 5,274.36 during the closing of the day, while the rupiah strengthened 0.29 percent to 13,137 per US dollar.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced a major reshuffle of his economic team on Wednesday and analysts concluded it resulted in a relatively good mix, particularly with the return of World Bank managing director Sri Mulyani Indrawati to lead the Finance Ministry, a position she previously held between 2005 and 2010.

Chosen as the 38th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes in 2014, Sri Mulyani is expected to kick-start the sluggish economy along with her former tax chief Darmin Nasution, who now leads the Office of the Economic Coordinating Minister.

Both have been credited as being tough reformists, winning plaudits for cleaning up internal bureaucracies at the ministry, particularly in the graft-ridden Directorate General of Taxation.

Analysts, however, offered mixed opinions over how long the reshuffle euphoria will impact markets positively, after a net buy of Rp 617 billion (US$51.2 million) by foreign investors on Wednesday.

Danareksa Sekuritas analyst Lucky Bayu Purnomo forecast that the impact of the reshuffle would keep supporting positive sentiments up to the year-end as the public had fresh expectations to see real improvements brought by the new economic team.

The state securities firm predicted the rupiah would reach Rp 13,050 and the JCI 5,315 by the weekend. By year-end it hoped to see the rupiah at Rp 12,800 and the JCI at between 5,500 and 5,700.

NH Korindo Securities’ head of research, Reza Priyambada, however, predicted the euphoria would last only until the end of the month before firms announced their first-half financial reports and businesses expected real outcomes from the new ministers.

He predicted the rupiah would hover between 13,200 and 13,175 per US dollar or between 13,090 and 13,075. The JCI was expected to reach 5,340 to 5,365 or 5,090 to 5,100. By December, NH Korindo Securities predicted the JCI would hit around 5,400 to 5,500.

Both lauded the new Cabinet mix as more solid and dynamic, thus bringing the market hope that it would see better economic performance under the Jokowi administration.

Lucky said Jokowi’s promise of economic growth of 7 percent was nowhere in sight, topping out at only 4.72 percent last year and 4.92 in the first quarter of this year.

“The public pins huge hopes on Sri Mulyani, the superstar, to balance the Cabinet’s performance and on Darmin as a senior figure to improve the economy by lifting household spending,” he said.

Aside from the reshuffle, analysts also said the market was driven by global expectations that the US Federal Reserve would delay raising its interest rates, that global oil prices would stabilize and that the ongoing tax amnesty would be successful.

“This move today likely has a correlation with the news of a possible change in the Cabinet. However, investors will now be turning their attention toward a very highly anticipated Fed monetary statement and on a Bank of Japan meeting this week,” said Jameel Ahmad, chief market analyst with Forextime.

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