South Korea: Stocks slide, won weakens on US government shutdown

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index weakened on Monday. The Korean won lost ground on the local platform while bond yields rose.

At 01.04 GMT, the Kospi was down 26.46 points or 1.05 per cent at 2,493.80, pressured by worries over the US government shutdown.

The won was quoted at 1,068.3 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform , 0.22 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,065.9.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,068.4 per dollar, down 0.11 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it fetched 1,058.3 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.27 per cent, with US stock futures edging lower following the government shutdown. Japanese stocks weakened 0.35 per cent.

The Kospi is up around 2.1 per cent so far this year, and 0.40 per cent higher 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 104,158,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 878, the number of advancing shares was 324.

Foreigners were net sellers of 29,465 million won worth of shares.

The dollar has risen 0.19 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 1,073.2 on January 11.

In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.06 points to 107.7.

The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.65 per cent, unchanged from its previous close, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.196 per cent, higher than the previous day's 2.17 per cent.

REUTERS