South Korea: Stocks slump on tech sell-off, won edges down

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index weakened on Monday. The Korean won edged down on the local platform while bond yields were unchanged.

At 01.16 GMT, the Kospi was down 21.73 points or 0.85 per cent at 2,522.60. The benchmark index slipped to to its lowest in more than a week as tech investors sold heavily, particularly Samsung Electronics , following analyst's report suggesting the memory chip "super cycle" would soon fade.

The won was quoted at 1,087 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform , 0.15 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,085.4.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,086.59 per US dollar, down 0.18 per cent from the previous session, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,083.65 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.44 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with mild gains. Japanese stocks rose 0.1 per cent.

The Kospi is up around 25.6 per cent so far this year, and up by 2.86 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 108,182,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 869, the number of advancing shares was 373.

Foreigners were net sellers of 168,138 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has fallen 9.92 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,083.4 per dollar on November 24 2017 and low is 1,211.8 on January 3 2017.

In money and debt markets, December futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.02 points to 107.97.

REUTERS