Seoul: Stocks climb, trimming week's losses; won firms

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index edged higher on Friday, trimming the week's losses amid global trade uncertainty.

The Korean won rose, while bond yields fell.

At 0630 GMT, the Kospi closed up 19.39 points or 0.83 per cent at 2,357.22, marking a 1.9 per cent weekly loss. Samsung Securities fell as much as 5 per cent to its lowest in two months after South Korea's financial watchdog recommended suspending some of its operations.

The won was quoted at 1,107.4 per US dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.49 per cent firmer than its previous close at 1,112.8.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,106.43 per US dollar, up 0.28 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it fetched 1,089.95 per US dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.36 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with mild losses. Japanese stocks weakened 0.78 per cent.

The Kospi is down around 5.3 per cent so far this year, and down by 5.02 per cent in the previous 30 days.

The current price-to-earnings ratio is 12.1, 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 531,047,000 shares and, of the total traded issues of 887, the number of advancing shares was 315.

Foreigners were net buyers of 5,807 million won worth of shares. The US dollar has risen 3.76 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,053.55 per US dollar on April 2 2018 and low is 1,116.45 on June 19 2018.

In money and debt markets, September futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.02 points to 107.95.

The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.65 per cent compared with a previous close of 1.65 per cent, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.143 per cent, lower than the previous day's 2.15 per cent.

REUTERS