Seoul: Stocks rise after 3 days of falls, won slips

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index rose nearly one per cent on Thursday after three consecutive sessions of declines. The Korean won edged down in the local platform, while bond yields rose.

At 01.04 GMT, the Kospi was up 14.26 points, or 0.59 per cent, at 2,422.32. After a 1.5 per cent drop in the last three sessions, investors came in for bargain-hunting as worries about a trade war between the United States and China eased.

The won was quoted at 1,062.3 per US dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.24 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,059.8.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,061.61 per US dollar, down 0.45 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being asked at 1,046.5 per US dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.23 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with gains . Japanese stocks rose 0.79 per cent.

The Kospi is down around 2.4 per cent so far this year, and up by 0.29 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 157,953,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 878, the number of advancing shares was 495.

Foreigners were net sellers of 25,940 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has fallen 0.41 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,053.55 per US dollar on April 2, 2018 and low is 1,098.4 on Feb 6, 2018.

In money and debt markets, June futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.05 points to 107.84.

The Korean three-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.65 per cent, while the benchmark three-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.178 per cent, higher than the previous day's 2.17 per cent.

REUTERS