Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Jakarta composite index fell slightly closing 3.73 points lower on Wednesday on profit taking, analysts said.

The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange (BEI) closed at 4,870.21 points or a 0.08 percent fall with the index of 45 most liquid stocks down 0.02 percent to 824.02 points.

PT Anugerah Sekurindo Indahs analyst, Bertoni Rio, said profit taking following a surge in share prices on Tuesday put pressure on the index.

Bertoni said the factors of foreign investors and rupiah appreciation kept the BEI index from falling deeper.

He said foreign investors still bought more than selling shares as indicated by the foreign net buy of Rp960.530 billion on Wednesday.

He predicted the BEI index would rebound on Thursday to cross the level of 4,900 points with property shares leading.

Panin Sekuritas analyst Purwoko Sartono said the election momentum could become a positive sentiment driving up the BEI index in the coming days.

Indonesia will hold legislative election on April 9, 2014 to be followed with presidential election in July.

"The previous two elections showed that the BEI index continued to increase," Purwoko said.

There were 259,000 transactions recorded in Wednesday trading at BEI with 4.81 billion shares worth Rp5.86 trillion changing hands.

Gainers were outnumbered by decliners by 145 to 170 shares with 92 shares unchanged.

Regional markets such as Hang Seng recorded a 0.34 percent increase in index to 22,523.94 with Nikkei index rising 1.04 percent to 14,946.32 and that of Straits Times down 0.24 percent to 3,190.74 points.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2014