The Jakarta Composite Index (JCI), the main index at the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), gained a modest 1.7 percent in 2019 to close the year at 6,299 on the backdrop of sluggish economic growth.

The index was under selling pressure through most of January due to fears over the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in China.

Meanwhile, the crackdown on stock pump-and-dump practices also pressured the market, after the investment mismanagement case of state-owned insurer PT Asuransi Jiwasraya unfolded, leading to the arrest of entrepreneurs Heru Hidayat and Benny Tjokrosaputro in mid-January.

Following the arrests, the IDX temporarily halted trading in five businesses implicated in the investigation into the Jiwasraya case, including fishery company PT Inti Agri Resources and property holding company PT Hanson International (MYRX), according to a statement from the IDX. The Attorney General’s Office (AGO), which handled the corruption case, also blocked hundreds of investors’ accounts as a part of its investigation.

The JCI declined steeply following the AGO’s suspension order. Since Jan. 24, the JCI had declined 6.04 percent, with weekly trading having closed at 5,866.94 on Feb. 14.

Shinhan Sekuritas investment banking vice president Bayu Swantono feared that the bearish market was caused by a domino effect from the Jiwasraya case, although IDX surveillance and compliance director Kristian Manullang blamed the rout on the COVID-19 outbreak instead.

“This has been caused by a regional market decline because of the virus outbreak,” he said.

Some suspected that the JCI’s decline was also caused by missing “market makers” following the AGO’s suspension. The suspicion arose as daily average transactions had declined to Rp 6.42 quadrillion (US$452.2 billion) year-to-date (ytd) as of Feb. 14, 29.53 percent lower than last year’s figure of Rp 9.11 quadrillion.

In February, the JCI also nosedived 2.63 percent to 5,539.38, a level unseen since March 2017 on Feb. 27, amid fears over the spread of COVID-19.

“Market players are still responding to the novel coronavirus outbreak, which is spreading fast,” Pilarmas Investindo Sekuritas researchers wrote in a note at the time.

However, it was in March when the country’s bourse hit rock bottom. It received another hard blow in March after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.

Fears of economic downturn triggered massive sell-offs in the global market as governments all over the world imposed strict lockdowns to curb the spread of the virus. The move sent the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and the NASDAQ composite into record lows and caused a global market rout.

The IDX and the Financial Services Authority (OJK) issued a series of rules and regulations to calm the market.

The first was a temporary halt on short selling in March to help anchor the main gauge. The OJK then followed suit by issuing a regulation that allowed listed companies to buy back shares up to 20 percent of paid-up capital without a prior shareholders meeting to ease market volatility.

“This is an effort to stimulate the economy and reduce the impact of the significantly fluctuating market,” the OJK said in a statement.

The IDX then issued a new auto-rejection regulation that capped stock prices falling to a maximum of 7 percent for stocks at all price ranges. It was also followed by a new trading-suspension policy that allowed the bourse to halt trading for 30 minutes if the main gauge fell by more than 5 percent.

Just days after the new trading-suspension policy was imposed, the market then hit the circuit breaker for the first time since 2008 in March 13 as it crashed more than 5 percent to 4,985.75 and resulted in trading ending 30 minutes early.

Investors seemed to disregard the government and Bank Indonesia’s (BI) fiscal and monetary stimulus as they went on massive selling sprees in March. In total, the JCI hit the circuit breaker six times in March, with trading temporarily halted and prices hitting rock bottom. The JCI fell to a historic low of 3,937.63 on March 24, the lowest since 2012.

Meanwhile, the last time the bourse’s circuit breaker was triggered this year was on Sept. 10, following Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan’s decision to retighten large-scale social restrictions (PSBB) due to surging COVID-19 infections, although the market bounced back the next day.

Amid new record lows and losses recorded during the period, the stock market did see an increase in retail investors.

The Indonesian Central Securities Depository (KSEI) recorded a 42.19 percent increase in domestic retail investors to 3.53 million as of Nov. 19. About 42.6 percent of those were stock investors, with the rest being mutual fund and bond investors.

“This pandemic has surely been a blessing in disguise for us because the stay-at-home orders seem to have encouraged people to learn more about investing in the capital market,” OJK stock market supervision executive head Hoesen said in August. “We didn’t expect the number of investors to grow this fast.”

The rise in domestic retail investors has provided the bourse with a liquidity buffer as foreign investors flee the country and institutional investors grow wary.

The bourse as of Dec. 23 comprised 68 percent domestic investors and 32 percent foreign investors. At the end of last year, the shares of domestic and foreign investors stood at 55.71 percent and 44.29 percent, respectively.

So far, the bourse recorded a foreign net sell of Rp 47.74 trillion as of Dec. 23.

Meanwhile, despite the stock market rout, the mining sector index thrived, growing 25.59 percent ytd as of Tuesday, which made it the sole index out of nine sectorial indexes to book positive growth.

The growth was mainly driven by big metals companies as commodities such as nickel and tin rebounded in March-April, while gold prices surged throughout the year. Coal prices, meanwhile, began recovering only in August-September, according to the London Metal Exchange (LME) and ICE NewCastle Coal.

Kresna Sekuritas analyst Robertus Yanuar Hardy said in November that expectations for recovery in manufacturing drove potentially higher demand for mining products and generated positive sentiment for mining stocks investment.

The stock market, too, rebounded from the bear market earlier this year. The JCI slowly regained its strength starting in May on hopes of economic recovery as the government started to loosen restrictions in June.

The rebound was even stronger in October, surging to 4,999.2, an improvement of 26.9 percent since the record low in March, after the House of Representatives passed the controversial Job Creation Law, which many analysts expected to have a positive impact on businesses, including publicly listed companies.

The rally continued in November following news that then-United States presidential candidate Joe Biden won the election, along with US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer Inc’s announcement that its vaccine was proven to have a high efficacy rate to prevent the COVID-19 infection.

Although the JCI had yet to set a new record, the latest vaccine development was able to send the IDX’s main gauge on a rally. The index managed to close back at its psychological 6,000 level on Dec. 14.

Artha Sekuritas vice president Frederik Rasali, however, remained cautious and projected the index to close at 5,800 by the end of 2020.

“Investors might be taking profits from the surge over the past few months,” he said.