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