South Korea: Stocks drop on fresh trade war concerns, bleak earnings

[SEOUL] South Korean shares ended lower on Wednesday as US President Donald Trump escalated trade tensions with China, while Japan's export curbs added to worries over bleak corporate earnings. 

 In earlier trade, the benchmark index dropped as low as 2010.95, marking its lowest intraday level since early January.

The Seoul stock market's main KOSPI index ended down 14.13 points or 0.69 per cent at 2,024.55. For the month, the index fell almost 5 per cent.

The KOSPI has fallen 0.81 per cent so far this year, but lost 2.9 per cent in the previous 30 trading sessions.

The trading volume during the session on the KOSPI index was 577.91 million shares and, of the total traded issues of 893, the number of advancing shares was 465.

REUTERS