Indonesian stocks slumped 10% on Thursday as the risk of a downgrade to frontier market status sparked a heavy selloff, while other Asian stock markets also lost ground and currencies wobbled against a still vulnerable dollar.
The Malaysian ringgit <MYR=> fell 0.4% after a six-session gaining streak, while the Philippine peso <PHP=> edged lower by 0.2%.
The dollar remained on shaky ground as uncertainty over U.S. economic policies and geopolitical moves were only partially offset by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s comment that Washington has a strong dollar policy.
Bessent’s remarks came ahead of the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates on hold as widely expected.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell talked of a solid economic outlook and diminished risks to inflation and employment, supporting expectations that rates could be on hold for longer.
Back in Asia, the Singapore dollar <SGD=> traded largely flat at 1.2622 per U.S. dollar, after the Monetary Authority of Singapore kept its policy settings unchanged, while pointing to upside risks to inflation and demand as the city-state’s economic outlook remained resilient.
The Indian rupee <INR=IN>hit an all-time low. The Indonesian rupiah <IDR=> dropped 0.5% in its worst fall in nearly five months, further weighed down by the selloff in Jakarta.
Jakarta’s benchmark stock index <.JKSE> was last down 6%. It fell 8% earlier in the session, triggering an automatic trading halt for the second straight day. It fell up to 10.1% when trading resumed before recouping some losses.
The benchmark was set for its largest two-day fall ever, as U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs cut its recommendation for Indonesian equities to “underweight”, a day after index provider MSCI flagged problems with market transparency and warned a downgrade to frontier from emerging status was possible.
“Investors will likely turn cautious on the outlook for Indonesian equities,” said Lloyd Chan, senior currency analyst with MUFG Global Markets Research.
“This could potentially also prompt passive outflows from Indonesian equities, even though MSCI has not made any changes to the market accessibility classification for Indonesian equities yet.”
Indonesia‘s financial regulator and stock exchange were set to address the media at 0600 GMT on recent developments in the stock market.
Other stock markets in the region eased following recent record runs, with mixed earnings from U.S. technology companies weighing on sentiment. Malaysian stocks <.KLSE> fell as much as 2.1%, while the tech-heavy Taiwan index <.TWII> shed 0.6%.
South Korean equities <.KS11> rebounded to a record high, led by SK Hynix’s <000660.KS> 5.1% jump to an all-time peak on forecast-beating record quarterly profit on strong chip demand.
