Wall Street was quite volatile over the 3 sessions, as the Indonesian market celebrated the Nyepi holiday & first fasting day, where the Dow Jones was moving back and forth between positive and negative territory, as various sentiments rolled in including: the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise the Fed Fund Rate 25 bps (as expected) to 5% and signaled (at least) one more hike this year, and ruled out the possibility of a rate cut this year. Moreover, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sought to reassure market participants that the US government measures will be taken to keep Americans’ deposits safe. The Nasdaq managed to post a 1% gain on Thursday’s trading session (23/03/23) on the back of market optimism that the Fed may put the brakes on the pace of interest rate hikes sooner than expected at the next FOMC Meeting (in May); with a 55% probability compared to 31.4% on the prior week according to Investing.com’s Fed Rate Monitor Tool. For the latest US economic data, inflationary pressures are still resilient as evidenced by Initial Jobless Claims coming in lower than expected and the previous week; while Building Permits and New Home Sales (Feb.) still grew higher than the previous period. From Europe, a similar 25 bps rate hike was also implemented by the Bank of England, placing their benchmark rate at 4.25%. The UK reported their Inflation rate (Feb.) still heating back up to a double digit level of 10.4% (higher than forecast of 9.9% and from previous of 10.1%). However, the BOE’s further comments on Inflation coming down fast brought hope to the market on the future of the current tight monetary policy. The German ZEW Economic Sentiment (Mar.) has indeed shown a more contractionary 6-month outlook of the business situation, which stands at 13 (down considerably from the forecast of 17.1 and the previous month’s figure of 28.1). Later this afternoon, UK Retail Sales (Feb.) data will be monitored. The data is expected to fall to 0.2% from 0.5% in the previous month; followed by German Manufacturing PMI (Mar.), UK PMI, US PMI (Mar.), and US Durable Goods Orders (Feb.) figures.
JCI was left in positive territory on Tuesday (21/03/23) at 6691.61 (up 79.12 points/1.197%), supported by Net Foreign Buy of IDR 494.25 billion, as the Job Creation Law was approved amidst opposition from several parties. Today, the market players will be concerned on which direction JCI will choose to adjust to the regional market view; whether to break the MA10 Resistance at 6695 and re-enter the 6700s (up to MA20/6760); or test the Support back to 6650-6600. NHKSI RESEARCH suggests a Hold position as the market tries to digest the sentiments this week.
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