Seoul: Stocks rebound after 4 days of losses, won weaker

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index rose on Thursday, snapping four-day losing streak. The Korean won edged down in the local platform while bond yields rose.

At 06:33 GMT, the Kospi was up 11.06 points or 0.46 per cent at 2,407.62.

South Korea's junior stock market sub-index, Kosdaq 150 , jumped nearly 6 per cent during the session, triggering a sidecar, a type of circuit breaker. The Kosdaq rose more than 4 per cent and closed up 3.85 per cent.

The won was quoted at 1,087.9 per US dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.12 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,086.6.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,086.88 per US dollar, up 0.22 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,077.3 per US dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.22 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with mild losses. Japanese stocks rose 1.13 per cent.

The Kospi is down around 2.9 per cent so far this year, and down by 1.80 per cent in the previous 30 days.

The current price-to-earnings ratio is 12.10, the dividend yield is 1.28 per cent and the market capitalisation is 1,242.04 trillion won.

The trading volume during the session on the Kospi index was 357,642,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 882, the number of advancing shares was 584.

Foreigners were net buyers of 92,554 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has risen 1.92 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,056.67 per US dollar on January 14 2018 and low is 1,098.4 on February 6 2018.

In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.08 points to 107.61.

The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.65 per cent, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.265 per cent, higher than the previous day's 2.25 per cent.

REUTERS