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Indonesian stocks record first rally in week after series of suspensions
The Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) lost 14.52 percent of its value this week and recorded a net sell of Rp 2.46 trillion.
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A visitor walks past a trading board at the Indonesia Stock Exchange building in Jakarta on March 13. (JP/Seto Wardhana)
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ndonesian stocks ended Friday session with a strong rally after a week of virus-battered performance that included a series of trading suspensions.
The Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) soared 2.18 percent to 4,194.94 in this week’s last trading session in the face of a selling spree worth Rp 794.02 billion (US$49.74 million) booked by foreign investors. The index lost 14.52 percent of its value this week and recorded a net sell of Rp 2.46 trillion.
Trading at the Indonesia Stock Exchange hit the circuit breaker four times since last Thursday as the JCI dropped lower than the 5 percent auto-rejection limit.
“Market players are lauding the government’s efforts to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak in Indonesia after the President announced plans to import millions of medicines to cure the patients,” Nafan Aji, Binaartha Parama Sekuritas analyst, told The Jakarta Post.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo announced that the government had officially kicked off rapid tests to detect COVID-19 and the first tests had been conducted in South Jakarta. It had also ordered Avignan, commonly used to treat COVID-19 symptoms in Japan, and chloroquine, a malaria medication.
Read also: Jokowi nixes lockdown, opts for mass testing
He also urged his ministers to focus state spending on health care, social aid and economic stimuli to combat the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indonesia recorded 369 COVID-19 cases and 32 deaths, while 17 patients had been declared cured, as of Friday.
The JCI’s rally was a complete turnaround from Friday morning movement when the IDX main gauge dropped below the psychological level of 4,000, a level unseen since September 2013. However, the situation quickly changed when the bourse resumed trading after lunch break as the index soared into positive territory.
Coal mining company PT Bukit Asam (PTBA) became the biggest gainer of the day as its share prices rose by 21.21 percent. Media firm PT Surya Citra Media followed suit, recording an 18.11 percent gain during the day, while mining services firm PT United Tractors gained 17.86 percent.
The JCI performance was in line with most Asian markets. Hong Kong jumped more than 5 percent, Shanghai climbed 1.61 percent, while Singapore soared 4.32 percent. Meanwhile in Europe, Frankfurt gained 4.56 percent, London was up 2.42 percent and Paris jumped almost 6 percent in the early session.
However, the rally in Indonesian stocks did not happen to the rupiah. The currency further depreciated by 0.3 percent on Friday to 15,960 per US dollar after plunging below the Rp 16,000 level earlier in the day, Bloomberg reported.
Bank Indonesia's Jakarta Interspot Dollar Rate data, meanwhile, showed that the rupiah fell to Rp 16,273 against the greenback, its lowest level since the 1998 crisis.
