The Indonesia stock market turned lower again on Friday, one session after snapping the two-day slide in which it had retreated more than 150 points or 2 percent. The Jakarta Composite Index now sits just beneath the 7,090-point plateau and it's tipped to open in the red again on Monday.
The global forecast for the Asian markets in negative, with continued pressure likely on the technology shares. The European markets were down and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.
The JCI finished sharply lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares and cement stocks, while the resource companies were mixed.
For the day, the index dropped 79.50 points or 1.11 percent to finish at 7,087.32 after trading between 7,036.21 and 7,141.58.
Among the actives, Bank CIMB Niaga declined 1.49 percent, while Bank Mandiri skidded 1.10 percent, Bank Danamon Indonesia retreated 1.43 percent, Bank Negara Indonesia slumped 1.42 percent, Bank Rakyat Indonesia tanked 3.65 percent, Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison dropped 0.93 percent, Indocement plummeted 6.99 percent, Semen Indonesia surrendered 5.14 percent, Indofood Sukses Makmur dipped 0.41 percent, United Tractors fell 0.69 percent, Astra International plunged 3.92 percent, Energi Mega Persada advanced 0.93 percent, Astra Agro Lestari sank 0.75 percent, Aneka Tambang rallied 2.03 percent, Vale Indonesia spiked 2.09 percent, Bumi Resources climbed 1.19 percent and Bank Central Asia and Timah were unchanged.
The lead from Wall Street is conflicted as the Dow opened higher on Friday and stayed that way, while the S&P and NASDAQ spent the entire session under water.
The Dow rallied 211.00 points or 0.56 percent to finish at 37,986.40, while the NASDAQ tumbled 319.49 points or 2.05 percent to end at 15,282.01 and the S&P 500 sank 43.89 points or 0.88 percent to close at 4,967.23.
For the week, the NASDAQ plummeted 5.5 percent, the S&P tumbled 3.1 percent and the Dow rose 0.1 percent.
The steep drop by the NASDAQ reflected heavy selling among shares of Netflix (NFLX) and AI darling Nvidia (NVDA). Reflecting the weakness in the sector, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dove by 4.1 percent to its lowest closing level since early February.
Banking stocks turned in a strong performance, driving the KBW Bank Index up by 2.9 percent. Interest rate-sensitive utilities stocks also moved notably higher amid a pullback by treasury yields, resulting in a 1.8 percent jump by the Dow Jones Utility Average.
Oil prices moved higher on Friday as geopolitical tensions rose following Israel's retaliatory attack on Iran. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May ended higher by $0.41 at $83.14 a barrel, although WTI crude futures shed about 3 percent in the week.
Closer to home, Indonesia will provide March data for imports, exports and trade balance later today. In February. Imports jumped 15.84 percent on year and exports slumped 9.45 percent for a trade surplus of $0.87 billion.
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