JakartaPost-Mar 18, 2025
The Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) Composite index tumbled 3.84 percent to 6,223 points on Tuesday, recovering only slightly from a plunge of more than 5 percent in the morning trading session that triggered a 30-minute trading halt. The suspension was the first one since the coronavirus pandemic and came after the index was at one point down 7.1 percent, before staging a partial rebound in the afternoon session. The sudden drop prompted House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad, a senior figure in President Prabowo Subianto’s Gerindra Party, to pay a visit to the IDX building in the afternoon, accompanied by several legislators. Tuesday, when the bourse recorded Rp 2.5 trillion (US$153 million) in net sales by foreign investors, extended the market’s losing streak to four consecutive trading days, bringing total losses to 6.9 percent. Since the start of the year, the IDX Composite has shed some 12.1 percent, with foreign investors offloading Rp 29.4 trillion in net sales. This contrasts with the wider region, where equities have been posting gains in recent days. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index led Asian markets after adding 2.5 percent on Tuesday to hit a three-year peak. Driven by tech stocks, the index has gained around 23.3 percent so far this year. India’s Sensex and Japan’s Nikkei 225 indexes followed with a 1.5 percent and 1.2 percent rise, respectively. Fikri Permana, an economist at local brokerage KB Valbury Sekuritas, noted that global investment banks had recently turned less optimistic on Indonesian equities. Goldman Sachs in a March 7 report cut its rating on Indonesia’s stock market from “overweight” to “market weight”, citing weaker corporate earnings and tighter banking system liquidity as key concerns.
Read more at:
