Rupiah, JCI strengthen on Fed rate increase

MARKET AND STOCK TRADING - JAKARTA. The rupiah and the Jakarta Composite Index (JCI) strengthened on Thursday on the back of the expected increase in the US Federal Reserve's short-term interest rates, which the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised by 25 basis points to a maximum 2.25 percent.

Bloomberg reported that the rupiah was quoted at 14,897 per US dollar on the spot market at 11:19 a.m. on Thursday, or 0.09 percent stronger than the day before. Meanwhile, the Jakarta Interbank Spot Dollar Rate (JISDOR) recorded a 0.13 percent increase in the rupiah rate to 14,919 per US dollar.

The JCI strengthened by 39.88 points before the midday break to 5,913.15, a 0.68 percent increase. Nine sectors supported the rebound in the JCI, with only the diversified industry sector showing a 0.71 percent downturn in share prices.

Analyst Ibrahim of security firm Garuda Berjangka said the strengthened rupiah meant that Bank Indonesia did not need to increase its 7-day reverse repo rate ( 7DRRR ) at its meeting on Thursday. He also noted that the Fed was expected to hike its rates once more this year.

He projected that the rupiah would strengthen to 14,860 per US dollar on Thursday and could strengthen to 14,600 per US dollar by December, but warned that the currency still faced external pressures, particularly the US-China trade war.

Meanwhile, the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) recorded that the consumer goods index strengthened 1.65 percent, along with the manufacturing index (1.91 percent), the basic industry index (0.94 percent) and the mining index (0.88 percent).

Transaction volume reached 6.01 billion shares and a total value of Rp 3.91 trillion.