Jakarta shares weaken

Indonesian share prices closed 0.70 percent lower on profit-taking on Thursday following the market's extended rally over the past five trading sessions, with a recent rate hike by the central bank beginning to dampen sentiment, dealers said.
They said the market held up surprisingly well considering the regional sell-off sparked by losses overnight on Wall Street on the prospect of higher US interest rates even as the US economy shows signs of slowing.
The Jakarta Stocks Exchange composite index closed down 7.679 points at 1,096.376 on volume of 803.72 million shares worth 1.17 trillion rupiah (115.56 million dollars).
Losers led gainers 80 to 32, while 57 stocks were unchanged.
The rupiah was at 10,070/10,780 to the dollar compared to Wednesday's level of 10,015/10,030.
The rupiah hit a high 9,960 to the dollar in early trade as investors welcomed news of the government's successful 1.5 billion dollar global bond sale.
The bond sale was more than four times oversubscribed and exceeded the government's target of 1 billion dollars, Finance Minister Jusuf Anwar said.
"Finally the market is running out of steam to extend its rally," said Prayoga Triyono, an analyst with brokerage firm PT Henan Putirai.
He said Thursday's market fall was actually something of a delayed reaction to the government's raising of fuel prices by an average 126 percent over the weekend, and to Bank Indonesia's decision Tuesday raising its reference rate, known as the BI rate, by 100 basis points.
The BI rate is designed to guide the direction of the Bank Indonesia Certificate (SBI) benchmark rate in the next three months. But due to escalating inflationary pressure, the SBI rate quickly rose to 11 percent at Wednesday's auction.
Technically and fundamentally speaking the stock market has to go down for a while, Triyono said, adding he sees 1,060 points as the near-term support.
Index heavyweight Telkom was down 100 rupiah at 5,300 rupiah, Indosat was down 50 rupiah at 5,750 rupiah, Astra International was down 300 rupiah at 9,500 rupiah while Gudang Garam was down 300 rupiah to close at 11,000 rupiah.
Banking stocks were mostly lower with Bank Mandiri down 10 rupiah at 1,470 rupiah, Bank Danamon lost 25 rupiah at 4,075 rupiah, Bank Rakyat Indonesia was down 75 at 2,525 rupiah, Bank Panin was down 25 rupiah at 450 while Bank Central Asia was flat at 3,525.
Newly-listed Excelcomindo was up 575 rupiah at 3,450 after saying it plans a new debt issue of 5 trillion rupiah in 2007 as it seeks to refinance existing debt and almost double its subscriber base to 10.4 million.