South Korea: Stocks down on foreign selling, won pulls back

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index fell on Tuesday, while Korean won also eased on the local platform while bond yields rose.

At 01.08 GMT, the Kospi was down 15.41 points or 0.63 per cent at 2,427.41, pressured by foreign selling and in line with weaker regional markets. A recommendation from the US Commerce Department to slap a tariff of at least 53 per cent on all steel imports from 12 countries, including China, India, Malaysia, and South Korea, is also weighing on sentiment.

The won was quoted at 1,069.3 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform , 0.16 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,067.6.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,069.9 per dollar, down 0.33 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it fetched 1,058.75 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.15 per cent. Japanese stocks weakened 0.87 per cent.

The Kospi is down around 1.0 per cent so far this year, and off 0.96 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 142,737,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 878, the number of advancing shares was 355.

Foreigners were net sellers of 11,555 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has risen 0.33 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,056.67 per dollar on January 14 and low is 1,098.4 on February 6.

In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.06 points to 107.48.

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 2.324 percent, higher than the previous day's 2.30 per cent.

REUTERS