Jakarta Composite Index at highest closing

Jakarta Composite Index at highest closing

The Jakarta Composite Index ended at a more-than-one-year record high on Friday's closing at 524.688, 1.24 percent or 6.442 points higher than Thursday's 518.24, with Indonesia's largest car producer PT Astra leading the gains.

A stock analyst said that the 13-month record high was driven by the positive sentiment over the listing debut of state-owned Bank Mandiri on Monday and the current interest rate declines.

"The index has reached its second resistance level because of confidence over the improvement in the country's macroeconomic conditions and the debut of Indonesia's largest bank, Bank Mandiri, on Monday," said the analyst.

Astra shares drove the index higher as they jumped by 6.5 percent to Rp 4,100, after the company said that it had managed to buy back US$113.5 million in foreign debt and Rp 7.7 billion in local debt on Tuesday.

Astra share gain was the highest since its shares were first traded on the stock exchange in 1990.

During Friday's trading, 77 companies gained, 37 declined and 80 were unchanged.

The trading volume reached 655 million shares valued at Rp 420 billion, up from 400 million shares valued at Rp 255 billion on Thursday.

The analyst said that the index was expected to climb higher next week driven by Friday's positive sentiments. --JP