South Korea: Stocks slightly up, won pulls back

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index edged up on Wednesday. The Korean won weakened on the local platform while bond yields rose.

At 01.04 GMT, the Kospi was up 1.63 points or 0.06 percent at 2,511.86.

The won was quoted at 1,070.3 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform , 0.3 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,067.1.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,069.77 per dollar, up 0.09 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it fetched 1,061.15 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.14 per cent, appearing to shrug off upbeat US stocks, which extended their New Year rally to record levels into a sixth day on expectations of solid corporate profit growth . Japanese stocks weakened 0.27 per cent.

The Kospi is up around 1.7 per cent so far this year, and up by 1.06 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 131,127,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 872, the number of advancing shares was 477.

Foreigners were net buyers of 5,423 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has risen 0.33 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,059 per dollar on January 8 and low is 1,072.95 on January 9.

In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.1 points to 107.74.

The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.66 per cent, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.181 per cent, higher than the previous day's 2.15 per cent.

REUTERS