Seoul: Shares end at near four-week high on Britain relief
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SOUTH Korean shares ended at a nearly four-week high on Tuesday (Oct 18), tracking a global rally on relief from Britain’s withdrawal of tax cut plans. The Korean won strengthened, while the benchmark bond yield rose.
The benchmark Kospi rose 30.24 points or 1.36 per cent to close at 2,249.95, its highest closing level since Sep 23.
The index pared most of its early gains, before rebounding and extending gains for a third session on reports the Bank of England is likely to delay its quantitative tightening.
The report came after Britain’s new finance minister scrapped Prime Minister Liz Truss’s economic plan and scaled back her vast energy support scheme on Monday, making a historic policy U-turn to try to stem a dramatic loss of investor confidence.
“It is seen as an upward push for now, but the market will continue to assess the issue around Britain’s fiscal policy going forward,” said Mirae Asset Securities analyst Kim Seok-hwan.
Tech giant Kakao rose 2.17 per cent, with affiliates Kakaobank and Kakaopay up 3.61 per cent and 6.21 per cent, respectively, recovering some of the previous session’s sharp losses on service outage of its instant messenger application. Naver jumped 3.29 per cent.
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Hybe rose 4.78 per cent after its boy band BTS said members would go off on mandatory military service, starting shortly with oldest member Jin, with analysts cheering eased uncertainty over the issue.
Foreigners were net buyers of shares worth 61.3 billion won (S$61.1 million), extending their buying streak to a 12th session – the longest since late November 2020.
The won ended 0.89 per cent higher at 1,422.7 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform.
December futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.02 point to 101.82.
The most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yield inched up by 0.5 basis point to 4.236 per cent, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 7.4 basis points to 4.274 per cent. REUTERS
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