Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia`s benchmark stock index was still on the decline on Wednesday on share sales by foreign investors.

The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange closed at 1.2 percent lower at 4,460.77 points with index of 45 most liquid stocks down 1.62 percent to 737.04 points.

"The BEI index fell quite sharply with share sales by foreign investors. The share sales was also reflected in the falling value of rupiah against the US dollar," Panin Sekuritas` analyst Purwoko Sartono said.

Purwoko said foreign investors sold Rp640 billion worth of shares on Wednesday.

External factor putting pressure on the regional indexes including BEI index was US failure to reach an agreement on its state budget which almost reached the ceiling.

Some US economic data being worse than expected also contributed to negative sentiment in the market, Purwoko said.

He said there was no signs that the time has been ripe for a reversal in the index movement but there is still potential buy back in short term after price fall in the past several days.

"We predict the BEI index would hover around 4,320--4,450 points on Thursday," he said.

Head of Research of PT Valbury Asia Securities, Alfiansyah said investors` attention is drawn to the US central bank policy after uncertainty over time when the stimulus begins to taper off.

Some economists forecast that the stimulus would begin to taper off next months, while others predicted The Fed would begin to cut its stimulus in December.

However, it is also possible that change in the stimulus police would wait until the change in the leadership of The Fed.

Replacement of the chairman of the Fed is expected only on January 31 in 2014.

On Wednesday there were 128,027 trade transactions with 3.483 billion shares valued at Rp4.814 trillion changing hands.

Gainers were outnumbered by decliners by 85 to 194 with 103 share flat

Regional markets such as Hang Seng recorded 0.78 percent increase in index to 23,198.52 units, with Nikkei-225 index down 0.76 percent to 14,620.53 points and that of Straits Times falling 0.08 percent to 3,211.75 points. (*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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