"Asian markets including BEI opened lower this morning with no new positive sentiment. The market players chose to wait and see what would come out of the meeting tonight of the European Central Bank," an analyst said.
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Jakarta composite share price index continued to be on the decline opening 0.08 percent lower on Thursday on absence of new positive sentiment.

The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) fell 3.29 to 4,238.01 points with index of 45 most liquid stock down 0.12 percent to 702.93 points.

"Asian markets including BEI opened lower this morning with no new positive sentiment. The market players chose to wait and see what would come out of the meeting tonight of the European Central Bank," Samuel Sekuritas analyst Adrianus Bias said here on Thursday.

Adrianus said market speculation related to the Feds tapering off issue become the main concern of the market after better than expectation data of US economy such as data about employment change and sales of new houses.

He said the rupiah weakening against the US dollar added to the negative sentiment putting pressure on the domestic market.

He predicted the BEI index would close around 4,200 points on Thursday.

Head of Research of Valbury Asia Securities Alfiansyah hoped that a series of polices issued by the government could ease the impact of possible tapering off.

One of the policies encouraging 11 state companies to go public is expected to be able to cushion any turbulence caused by the Feds decision, he said.

Regional markets such as Hang Seng recorded a 0.25 percent decline in index to 23,669.27 points with Nikkei-225 index down 0.34 percent to 15,356.31 points and that of Straits Times falling 0.65 percent to 3,139.96 points.

Meanwhile, rupiah fell in value against the US dollar trading at the level of 11,990 per US dollar on improved data of US economy.

In interbank transactions in the first minutes of trading on Thursday, the Indonesian currency weakened from the previous level of 11,976 per dollar.

Monex Investindo Futures analyst Zulfirman Basir predicted that rupiah would trade at the level of 11,930--12,145 per dollar on Thursday .(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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