Seoul: Stocks edge up; won ends higher

[SEOUL] South Korea's KOSPI stock index closed higher on Wednesday. The Korean won ended stronger against the greenback in the local platform, while bond yields dropped. At 0630 GMT, the KOSPI was up 6.34 points or 0.26 per cent at 2,471.91.

Shares of major chipmaker SK Hynix rose nearly 7 per cent to close at their highest since June 2001. Tech shares were boosted by gains in SK Hynix. Samsung Electronics rose 3.6 per cent, while the sub-index for electric and electricity shares gained 3.7 per cent.

The won was quoted at 1,080.7 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.43 per cent firmer than its previous close at 1,085.4. In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,079.46 per US dollar, down 0.36 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being asked at 1,062 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.43 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with losses. Japanese stocks weakened 1.18 per cent. The KOSPI is down around 0.1 per cent so far this year, and slipped 1.15 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 746,409,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 886, the number of advancing shares was 247.

Foreigners were net buyers of 284,148 million won worth of shares. The US dollar gained 1.23 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,053.55 per dollar on April 2, 2018, and low is 1,098.4 on Feb 6 this year.

In money and debt markets, June futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.02 points to 107.7. The Korean three-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.65 per cent, while the benchmark three-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.244 per cent, lower than the previous session's 2.25 per cent.

REUTERS