Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Jakarta composite index opened 0.15 percent higher on Monday on US economy growing higher than expectation, analysts said.

The index of the Indonesian Stock Exchange rose 6.15 points to 4,201.71 points with index of 45 most liquid stocks up 0.23 percent to 700.15 points.

Samuel Sekuritas analyst Yualdo Yudoprawiro said higher than expectation growth of the US GDP in the third quarter of 2013 gave positive sentiment to the Asian markets including BEI.

"Asian markets opened mixed but tended to gain this morning as a result of the US GDP data ," Yualdo said.

He said a statement5 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it would revise up its target for US economic growth added to the market optimism.

However, the market would tend to be muted with minimum positive sentiment at home and Christmas and new year holidays , he said.

Mandiri Sekuritas technical analysts predicted that the BEI index would move around 4,174-4,225 points on Monday.

Regional markets such as Hang Seng recorded a 0.66 percent gain in index to 22,962.30 points with Nikkei-225 index up 0.07 percent to 15,870.42 points and that of Straits Times gaining 0.29 percent to 3,103.49 points.

Meanwhile rupiah gained 6 points against the US dollar opening at the level of 12,200 per dollar in inter-bank transaction in the first minutes of trading on Monday.

"The Feds decision to trim its massive financial stimulus by US$10 billion to 75 billion a month starting January 2014 remains the main factor preventing rupiah from regaining strength," Trust Securities chief researcher Reza Priyambada said.

Reza said growing demand for US dollar toward the end of a year also contributed to the rise of the US dollar at the expense of the majority of the world currencies including rupiah.

At 09.45 local time the rupiah value fell again shedding 14 points to 12,220 per dollar.

Monex Investindo Futures chief researcher Ariston Tjendra said the US dollar gained more strength boosted by a 4.1 percent growth of the US economy in the third quarter of 2013, higher than previous estimate of 3.6 percent.

"The report about the US GDP is consistent with the US economic improvement conforming the decision of the Fed to cut its financial stimulus," Ariston said.(*)

Editor: Heru Purwanto
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