The Indonesian stock market will remain under pressure this

The Indonesian stock market will remain under pressure this week after sliding sharply in the past week, an analyst said over the weekend.

"Next week I think the market will still be under pressure," said Hendra Bujang, corporate finance manager at Margakarya Securities.

"First, because global markets are also under pressure and second, investors are still concerned about security ahead of the presidential election. The bombing in Pekanbaru shows that Indonesia remains vulnerable," he said.

"That is one reason why investors prefer to engage in profit- taking or stay out of the market. They are worried about possible systematic attempts to disrupt the election."

The bombing last Tuesday of a shophouse in Pekanbaru city killed two workers for an ethnic Chinese grocery store operator. The motive remains unclear.

Indonesia holds its first direct presidential election on July 5.

The Jakarta Stock Exchange composite index closed on Friday at 743.637, down 39.776 points or 5.1 percent on the previous Friday. Average daily volume was 1.59 billion shares worth Rp 1.02 trillion (US$116.7 million) compared with 1.47 billion shares worth Rp 921.7 billion the previous week.

In Bangkok, the Thai stock market is expected to hover rangebound in sluggish trading as the bourse remained under negative domestic and overseas factors.

Overseas investors would stop selling off their Thai holdings given the Morgan Stanley Capital International index is expected to increase its weight in the Taiwan market this week.

2. 2 x 24 Asia remains ambiguous about low-cost carriers As European low-cost carriers run into flak, Asia remains ambiguous about them

While dozens of low-cost airlines in Europe are locked in a dogfight for survival, the concept of no-frills carriers is just taking off on the Asian and Australian continents.

The cutthroat competition in Europe has caused at least three carriers among the more than 50 currently operating at present to go belly up in recent months.

And Europe's largest low-cost airline, easyJet PLC, said last week that competitive pressure led to a loss of 19.7 million pounds (US$35 million) in the first half of its fiscal year.

Still, another two dozen startups are awaiting permission to begin flying across the EU.

"This is a problem that's been brewing in Europe for quite some time with so many people jumping onto the bandwagon they were always going to hit a bit of a bump," said Peter Harbison, head of the Center for Asia-Pacific Aviation in Sydney, Australia.

While Europe's budget airlines undergo growing pains, Asia's are still in their infancy.

With an area several times larger than Europe and about five times more people, industry analysts say expectations for growth in Asia's budget air travel is tremendous.

But in many countries, including the region's largest potential market, China, government-held aviation turf is closely guarded, with state-sponsored carriers and other full-service airlines restricting landing slots and effectively shutting out new entrants.

A number of other nations have resisted the temptation to deregulate their markets, including South Korea and Taiwan.

But that hasn't caused a complete standstill in the development of low-cost airlines in the region. Industry mavericks such as recording industry-turned airline executive Tony Fernandes, who runs Malaysia-based AirAsia, have moved the ball forward by forging cross-border joint-ventures.

3. 2 x 32 Oil hits 13-year high on security fears, gold hits six-month low Oil hits 13-year high, gold sets six-month low

Concerns about the security of Middle East oil supplies and a feverish gasoline market in the United States drove crude oil prices to a 13-year high of US$40 a barrel in New York this week.

Gold prices hit a six-month low, as a strong dollar weighed on the precious metal and other commodities priced in the U.S.-unit.

The Commodities Research Bureau (CBI) index of 17 commodities rose to 272.84 points on Friday from 272.53 a week earlier.

Gold: Gold prices slumped to a six-month trough as the dollar surged against other major currencies and investors bet on rising U.S. interest rates.

"The end of the 'reflation trade', where investors saw commodities benefiting from low interest rates, money supply growth and a weak U.S. dollar, has greatly affected gold," Barclays Capital analyst Kamal Naqvi said.

4. 1 x 40 Airbus launches production of 'Superjumbo' Airbus Launches Production Of A380 `Superjumbo' Airliner

European aircraft maker Airbus SAS on Friday launched production of its A380 "superjumbo," the biggest-ever commercial airliner, stepping up its challenge to U.S. rival Boeing Co. and the midsize jet on which it has staked its future.

During a ceremony attended by French Prime Minister Jean- Pierre Raffarin, Airbus unveiled the first fuselage at its massive new $435 million assembly plant near the southern city of Toulouse.

The 220-hectare site will receive sections of the plane built by Airbus workers in France, Germany, the U.K. and Spain and transported to Toulouse on specially constructed ships, river barges and trucks.

The A380 confirms Airbus' status as "one of the most beautiful pages in the book of French and European industrial history," Raffarin told about 3,000 assembled VIP guests and Airbus workers.

Company executives said a combination of limited global runway capacities and steady growth in demand for air travel promised a rosy future for the A380.

The 555-seater A380 will carry about one-quarter more passengers than a Boeing 747, making better use of precious takeoff and landing slots as well as fuel, flight crew and other resources when it enters service for Singapore Airlines in 2006.