Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Jakarta composite index fell in the opening trade on Tuesday to follow the regional trend.

The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange opened 0.52 percent lower to 4,099.37 points with index of 45 most liquid stocks down 1.54 percent to 667.44 points.

"The BEI index shrank again on pressure on domestic financial market and regional markets," Samuel Sekuritas` analyst Benedictus Agung said here on Tuesday.

Conflict in Surya partly contributed to the market decline in Asia , Benedictus said, adding the conflict resulted in an increase of 0.5 percent in the oil price in the world market.

"Commodity-based stocks helped curb the fall of the BEI index, and stock prices are expected to regain strength later in the day on rupiah weakening," he said.

PT aMcapital Securities` analyst Viviet S Putri said plantation stocks such as CPO-based stocks tended to gain on government decision to cut export taxes on export oriented industries.

Regional markets such as Hang Seng recorded a 0.8 percent fall in index to 21,920.79 points with Nikkei-225 index down 0.31 percent to 13,593.86 points with that of Straits Times losing 0.32 percent to 3,074.46 points.

Meanwhile, the rupiah lost more value against the US dollar in the opening trade on Tuesday on pressure brought on by uncertainty over decision of the US central bank on monetary stimulus.

Rupiah opened at 11,075 per dollar from 10,840 earlier.

Samuel Sekuritas` economist Lana Soelistianingsih said the uncertainty resulted in foreign capital continuing to flow out from developing countries including Indonesia.

Financial observer from Bank Himpunan Saudara, Ruly Nova, said Bank Indonesia (BI) still intervenes in the financial market that the declining trend of rupiah would not continue for too long.

He said a number of steps taken by the central bank helped counter the negative sentiment from abroad.

However, a number of market players were not satisfied with the mid and long term policy package announced by the government last weekend, he noted.

"The market players now want short term policy to bring stability to the market," he said.
(AS)

Editor: Ella Syafputri
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