The Indonesian rupiah firmed after the central bank unexpectedly raised interest rates on Tuesday, a week ahead of its scheduled policy meeting, as it sought to put a floor under the free-falling currency against growing external pressures.<\/p>\n
The rupiah appreciated to 18,050 per dollar immediately after the surprise quarter-point rate hike, just three weeks after Bank Indonesia hiked its policy interest rate by 50 basis points.<\/p>\n
“The move does show a sense of proactiveness in preventing any further backsliding in sentiment,” said Lavanya Venkateswaran, a senior ASEAN economist at OCBC.<\/p>\n
“It can help stabilise sentiment at the margin. However, its sustainability will also depend on clearer policy direction of the broader authorities to address perceived risks around recent announcements.”<\/p>\n
Southeast Asia’s biggest economy has been facing declining investor confidence over fiscal concerns, equity market governance issues highlighted by an MSCI review, risks to central bank autonomy, and a shifting commodity export policy.<\/p>\n
The Jakarta Composite Index was up 4.8% at 5,599.74 points prior to the midday break. The benchmark rose as much as 5.3% earlier in the day after tumbling around 4.5% in the previous session.<\/p>\n
Equities in other Asian emerging markets bounced back as investors rushed into battered equities after Iran and Israel said they had halted attacks, with AI-linked stocks in South Korea and Taiwan rebounding after a sharp correction on Monday.<\/p>\n
Currencies also found support as oil prices eased: the South Korean won appreciated to 1,511 per dollar, while the Malaysian ringgit firmed to 4.055 a dollar, recovering from a five-month low.<\/p>\n
The MSCI EM Asia equities index jumped 4%, reversing much of the decline from Monday. A gauge tracking ASEAN stocks also rebounded from an eight-month low hit in the previous session.<\/p>\n
South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI index rebounded sharply on the day, surging 8% and triggering a sidecar mechanism within minutes of opening. The index ended more than 8% in the red in the previous session on rising bets of U.S. rate hikes.<\/p>\n
Chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics soared about 15% and 9%, respectively.<\/p>\n
The KOSPI, despite a 15% decline over the past three sessions, remains around 90% in the green this year, largely driven by leveraged equity investment by retail investors, which has topped a record 60 trillion won as of the end of May, according to a Bank of Korea report.<\/p>\n
Equities in Taiwan gained as much as 3% on Tuesday, and are up 54% for the year. Top contract chipmaker TSMC has advanced 49% so far this year.<\/p>\n
In Southeast Asia, Singapore’s FTSE Straits Times Index, Thailand’s SET index , and the Philippine benchmark index advanced more than 1% each, while stocks in Malaysia erased early gains to trade flat.<\/p>\n
Currencies were largely muted: the Philippine peso, the Singapore dollar, and the Indian rupee inched higher, while the Thai baht slipped marginally to 32.875 a dollar.<\/p>\n
HIGHLIGHTS:<\/p>\n
** Indonesian 10-year benchmark yields at 7.313%<\/p>\n
** Indonesia’s finmin calls for synergy between fiscal and monetary policies<\/p>\n
** Powerful Philippine quake leaves at least 32 feared dead, survivors recount fear<\/p>\n
** China exports and imports surge in May – Reuters\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Indonesian rupiah firmed after the central bank unexpectedly raised interest rates on Tuesday, a week ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[223925,14709,114,16754,1576,24531,85,7554,4486,53117,46,210225,223924,6807],"class_list":["post-483572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-asean-stocks","tag-bank-indonesia","tag-business","tag-central-bank","tag-emerging-markets","tag-forex","tag-il","tag-indonesian-rupiah","tag-interest-rates","tag-investor-confidence","tag-israel","tag-jakarta-composite-index","tag-msci-em-asia","tag-oil-prices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}