Rupiah Rebounds From Three-Year Low on Intervention Speculation

Indonesia’s rupiah gained the most in two weeks, rebounding from a three-year low, on speculation the central bank intervened in the market to stabilize the currency.

Bank Indonesia will hold its benchmark rate at a record-low 5.75 percent for a 10th month tomorrow, according to all 18 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

The monetary authority continues to reduce the local currency’s volatility in line with its fundamentals, it said in a Nov. 8 statement on its website.

Indonesia’s trade balance swung to a shortfall of $1.5 billion in October, indicating the current account will probably remain in deficit for a fifth straight quarter.

“The rupiah tends to approach new lows, but the central bank seeks to stabilize the exchange rate,” said Taufan Tito, a Jakarta-based foreign-exchange dealer at PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia, said on Monday. “Investors want the reference rate raised considering the current-account deficit but it will probably be steady this year.”

The rupiah strengthened 0.2 percent to 9,635 per dollar as of 3:28 p.m. in Jakarta on Monday, the biggest gain since Nov. 26, prices from local banks compiled by Bloomberg show. It reached 9,733 earlier, the weakest level since September 2009.

One-month implied volatility, a measure of expected moves in exchange rates used to price options, rose 13 basis points, or 0.13 percentage point, to 5.5 percent.

The yield on the government’s 7 percent bonds due in May 2022 climbed one basis point to 5.38 percent, prices from the Inter Dealer Market Association show.

Source: Bloomberg
Editor: DailyWeeks

Bloombeg TV Expand to Indonesia Next Year

Bloomberg Television on Monday announced the formation of a partnership in Indonesia with the Idea Group, a Jakarta-based media and strategic communication holding company, to launch Bloomberg Television Indonesia in early 2013.

Presented in Bahasa Indonesia, Bloomberg Television Indonesia will bring Bloomberg news, alongside locally-produced content, to southeast Asia's largest economy.

Bloomberg TV Indonesia will partner with existing broadcast entities and air on Free to Air, Pay TV, internet and mobile platforms.

"Indonesia is not just one of the largest consumer markets in Asia, it also has one of the fastest growing economies and rising investor classes,"  Gary Groenheim, Commercial Director of Bloomberg Television, Asia-Pacific, said in a statement sent to the Jakarta Globe.

"We have long identified Indonesia as a strategic emerging market to take Bloomberg Television's global experience and translating that into a meaningful local TV proposition. With the Idea Group, we have found a partner with the vision and passion to take business news from its traditionally narrow and specialist confines to a broader, mainstream audience," he added.

Ziva Narendra Arifin, CEO of Idea Group Indonesia, said the partnership will involve transfer of skills, experience and journalism ethics, and added that it will certainly benefit the local market.

“This partnership is based on a shared mission of providing locally relevant, influential business content that will enhance the lives of Indonesia’s rapidly growing consumer class, which has limited access to business management education," Ziva said.

Ziva added that as a business content provider, the Idea Group Indonesia has a long-term interest in educating the local population about important business and economic news, and bringing local content to the rest of the world.

Sources: The Jakarta Globe
Editor: DailyWeeks

Sinar Mas to Build Oleo chemical Plant in Dumai

Sinar Mas Group to build a renewable oleo chemical plant in Dumai, Riau with IDR2 trillion investment or US$245 million.

Managing Director of Sinar Group, Gandi Sulistiyanto confirmed oleo chemical plant construction plan in Dumai, Riau.

The plant construction is predicted to be completed on scheduled set by company. However, he was reluctant to mention the details of investment value and production capacity.

Based on information collected by Bisnis, the company will build oleo chemical plant in 24 hectare area.

Directorate General of Agro Industry Benny Wachyudi said the company is reviewing the incentive to the government both tax holiday and tax allowance.

The company to build a plant-based palm oil with an investment reached US$245 million and will absorb 1,000 workers.

Sources: Bisnis Indonesia
Editor: DailyWeeks

$10 million worth of tickets have been sold for the fight Pacquiao vs Marquez

Hundreds of screaming Filipino boxing fans tried unsuccessfully to shout down their Mexican rivals at the weigh-in for Saturday's welterweight fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez.

Chants of "Manny, Manny" were answered with even more boisterous calls of "Marquez, Marquez" from the dominant flag-waving Mexican supporters as a crowd of about 5,000 people squeezed into the MGM Grand Garden arena on Friday.

"I am happy to give honour to my country in boxing," the 33-year-old Pacquiao told the crowd.

Pacquiao, 54-4-2 with 38 knockouts, weighed in at the division's 147-pound (67 kilograms) limit while Marquez, 54-6-1 with 39 knockouts, came in at 143 pounds.

Pacquiao's huge following in the Philippines was on display at the arena, with many of his supporters flying in from his home country and other parts of the United States.

With the 16,000-capacity arena sold out for Saturday's fight, this is as close as many will get to the fighters in person. One eager Filipino couple, who flew in from Hawaii, started lining up in the wee hours of the morning 11.5 hours before the doors were scheduled to open.

When southpaw Pacquiao and Marquez enter the ring Saturday for their non-title bout, it will be the fourth time in eight years they have fought.

Pacquiao, who is eager to redeem himself after suffering a defeat in his most recent fight to Tim Bradley, is tired of Marquez blaming his failure to win in their three previous fights on biased judging.

Marquez claims he won all three fights -- although two were scored in favour of Pacquiao and one ended in a draw.

The boxers were joined on podium Friday by former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, promoter Bob Arum and their trainers, Freddie Roach for Pacquiao and Ignacio Beristain for Marquez.

Organizers announced on Friday that more than $10 million worth of tickets have been sold for the fight, which is also being carried on both closed-circuit television at venues around Las Vegas and pay-per-view in private homes.

Pacquiao said earlier in the week that there won't be a fifth fight, which would put them in the class of Gene Tunney-Harry Greb, who had five bouts between 1922-1925.

Sources: Agence France-Presse, The Jakarta Globe
Editor: DailyWeeks

US Jobless Rate at 7.7%

Washington. US employment grew faster than expected in November as the hit from superstorm Sandy on payrolls was less forceful than many feared.

At the same time, the jobless rate fell to a near four-year low, but that was largely because so many Americans gave up the hunt for work.

Nonfarm employment increased by 146,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, defying expectations of a sharp pull back related to superstorm Sandy.

The government said the storm that slammed the densely populated East Coast had not had a substantive impact on last month’s employment and unemployment estimates.

The 0.2 percentage point drop in the unemployment rate to 7.7 percent — the lowest since December 2008 — represented a drop in both the labor force and employment as measured by a survey of households. Economists generally rely more heavily on the payrolls reading from the separate and much larger survey of employers.

While job gains for both September and October were revised to show 49,000 fewer jobs created than earlier reported, the revision was concentrated in the government sector.

Job gains have averaged 151,000 per month this year, just enough to push the jobless rate lower, but only slowly. Economists say roughly 200,000-250,000 jobs per month are needed to really make headway.

Employment continues to be held back by fears the government may fail to prevent the $600 billion in automatic tax hikes and government spending cuts set to take hold at the start of next year. The debt crisis in Europe has also weighed.

With the pace of job growth still too slow, November’s report is not expected to have much impact on Federal Reserve policymakers, who meet next Tuesday and Wednesday.

Relentless labor market weakness led the Fed in September to launch a program to buy $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities every month to drive down borrowing costs.

That is on top of a program dubbed “Operation Twist” in which it was re-weighting securities it holds toward longer maturities. Twist expires at the end of this month and economists expect the Fed to replace it with a program that buys government bonds with newly created money.

All of the meager jobs gains in November were in the private sector, with government employment slipping 1,000.

Within the vast private services sector, retail employment gained 52,600, professional and businesses services increased 43,000. Temporary help hiring increased 18,000.

In the goods-producing sector, manufacturing employment fell 7,000. Construction payrolls surprisingly dropped 20,000, despite a surge on homebuilding, which is benefiting from the Fed’s accommodative policy stance.

Sources: Reuters, The Jakarta Globe
Editor: DailyWeeks

Bus Driver Restore Money Bags Containing 309 thousand euro

One more story of human honesty that often can not be trusted. This time it happened in Vienna, Austria, and the person was a bus driver.

The driver's name was WolfgangR (51). On Wednesday (11/05/2012), Wolfgang recently completed work driving a bus in the capital of Austria's.

As he was checking the bus, he found a bag lying on the seat right behind the driver's seat. Wolfgang astonishment when he opened the bag containing the money 309,000 euros.

"At first I thought it contained drugs or groceries," says Wolfgang told the daily Krone.

Without thinking, Wolfgang then took the bag containing the money to the police station. According to documents in the bag, police found a bag that turned out to be the owner of a retiree who just withdrew all his life savings from the bank.

So, what about us? Can we be like Wolfgang?

Source: Kompas, AFP
Editor: DailyWeeks

U.S. Presidential Election Cost $ 2 Billion

U.S. Presidential Election 2012 cost more than two billion dollars. This is the cost for a few weeks before the election on 6 November and is the most expensive in the history of U.S. politics.

Federal Election Commission said the figures after entering all expenses during the election campaign. Each candidate spends less cost by a similar amount, more than one billion U.S. dollars.

Cost is included to support the campaign of U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, who eventually defeated.

Estimated cost of the campaign was very intense because both sides attacking each other action, including through advertising, and operating costs both sides in the field are also competing very fiercely.

Source: Kompas
Editor: DailyWeeks