Seoul: Stocks fall for third straight session; slip 1.7% for week

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index dropped for the third straight session on Friday, as institutions offloaded local stocks. The South Korean won fell for the fifth consecutive session, hovering near the lowest since early 2017, while the benchmark bond yield fell.

The Seoul stock market's main Kospi index ended down 11.19 points, or 0.51 per cent, at 2,179.31. For the week, the KOSPI lost 1.66 per cent. Foreigners were net buyers of 34.8 billion won worth of shares on the main board, while institutions were net sellers of 183.8 billion won worth of stocks.

The won was quoted at 1,161.0 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.04 per cent lower than its previous close at 1,160.5. On weekly basis, the currency weakened 2 per cent versus dollar.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,160.5 per US dollar, down 0.1 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forward trading its one-month contract was quoted at 1,159.3 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.06 per cent, after US stocks were mixed. Japanese stocks fell 0.22 per cent.

The Kospi has risen 6.77 per cent so far this year, and rose 1.6 per cent in the previous 30 trading sessions.

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 560.74 million shares. Of the total traded issues of 893, the number of advancing shares was 261.

The won has lost 3.9 per cent against the US dollar this year.

In money and debt markets, June futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.04 point to 109.54, while the three-month Certificate of Deposit rate was quoted at 1.84 per cent.

The most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 0.2 basis point to 1.726 per cent, staying below policy rate at 1.75 per cent, while the benchmark 10-year yield fell by 0.2 basis point to 1.877 per cent.

REUTERS