JCI Stays Bullish as OJK Says Downside Risk Is Already Priced In
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JAKARTA, Investortrust.id — Indonesia’s benchmark equity index remains resilient on Tuesday, Nov 18, 2025 in Jakarta as Financial Services Authority, or OJK, Chairman Mahendra Siregar says downside risk in global markets is already anticipated by investors, a dynamic that helps the JCI stay bullish despite persistent uncertainty. The index has reached 14 all time highs this year, a trend that underscores strong domestic positioning even as geopolitical and trade tensions continue to weigh on global sentiment.
OJK as the country’s financial services authority noted that JCI had already posted 14 record closes by Nov 17, with investors navigating a landscape shaped by volatility in global trade flows. Mahendra reminded the audience that the index once plunged 17 percent on Monday, Nov 18, 2024 and closed at 7,134.
He said the index stood at 7,106 six months later on Friday, May 16, 2025, a level that appeared flat compared with the earlier reading even though markets had endured sharp swings in between. He explained that the index had dropped to 6,000 in April 2025, only three weeks before May 16, driven by a market selloff triggered after United States President Donald Trump announced plans for tariff increases during Liberation Day celebrations.
Mahendra said the market now appears relatively calmer compared with that period, even though domestic fundamentals have not changed significantly in the past six to twelve months. He added that Indonesia continues to operate within a global environment marked by geopolitical tension, trade disputes, and shifting supply chains resulting from friction between the United States and China.
He said these frictions had weighed on international trade flows and increased logistics costs across key markets. The environment also kept global uncertainty at a persistent level and limited the extent of relief rallies in emerging markets.
Mahendra said his outlook had shifted since he first joined the Financial System Stability Committee in 2022 as OJK Chairman, when he had expected geopolitical tensions to ease only in a decade. He said the world had instead settled into a pattern of long term, structural standoffs.
"This is it, we are in the new geopolitical normal," he said.
He said the ongoing tariff negotiations between Indonesia and the United States illustrated how little real progress had been achieved since talks began. The absence of breakthroughs, he said, underscored how structural the friction had become.
Mahendra said recent IHSG performance showed that investors had begun adapting to these conditions by reassessing Indonesia through a domestic lens rather than external dynamics. He said markets now treated uncertainty as normal and focused instead on Indonesia’s economic fundamentals including fiscal and monetary policy, industrial performance, domestic consumption, political stability, and the outlook for micro, small, and medium enterprises as well as regional economies.
He said the IHSG now reflected the reality that global factors contributed very little to recent market movements. "In other words the global economy has had downside risk that we have expected to deteriorate and deteriorate more quickly. That is why this global condition is the new normal," he said.