Indonesia Bourse Likely To Head South Again On Monday

(RTTNews) - The Indonesia stock market on Friday ended the two-day slide in which it had dipped almost 20 points or 0.3 percent. The Jakarta Composite Index now rests just beneath the 6,135-point plateau although it figures to see renewed selling pressure on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on sinking crude oil prices and on the outlook for interest rates. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses are expected to open in similar fashion.

The JCI finished modestly higher on Friday following mixed performances from the financial shares and resource stocks.

For the day, the index collected 23.30 points or 0.38 percent to finish at the daily high of 6,133.25 after trading as low as 6,086.08.

Among the actives, Bank Danamon Indonesia collected 0.38 percent, while Bank CIMB Niaga skidded 1.01 percent, Bank Negara Indonesia gained 0.47 percent, Bank Central Asia was up 0.31 percent, Bank Mandiri retreated 1.63 percent, Bank Rakyat Indonesia sank 0.82 percent, Indosat tanked 3.16 percent, Indocement declined 1.19 percent, Semen Indonesia shed 0.57 percent, United Tractors plunged 5.31 percent, Astra International advanced 0.93 percent, Energi Mega Persada soared 3.36 percent, Aneka Tambang fell 0.41 percent, Vale Indonesia eased 0.21 percent, Timah rose 0.34 percent, Bumi Resources jumped 1.85 percent and Astra Agro Lestari and Indofood Suskes were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is firmly negative as the major averages opened lower on Friday and stayed that way throughout the session.

The Dow shed 166.44 points or 0.48 percent to finish at 34,584.88, while the NASDAQ sank 137.96 points or 0.91 percent to end at 15,043.97 and the S&P 500 fell 40.76 points or 0.91 percent to close at 4,432.99. For the week, the Dow eased 0.1 percent, the NASDAQ lost 0.5 percent and the S&P fell 0.6 percent.

The weakness on Wall Street came as traders looked ahead to next week's highly anticipated monetary policy meeting from the Federal Reserve. The Fed is widely expected to leave monetary policy unchanged but could address the outlook for its asset purchase program.

The minutes of the Fed's last meeting signaled the central bank might begin scaling back asset purchases by the end of the year. With recent disappointing economic data suggesting the Fed could delay, traders will pay close attention to the wording of the post-meeting statement.

Crude oil futures settled lower Friday on reports crude supply is being restored after hurricanes Ida and Nicholas had impacted production in the Gulf of Mexico. A firm dollar also led to the decline in crude oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for October fell $0.64 or 0.9 percent at $71.97 a barrel. WTI crude futures gained more than 3 percent for the week.