Seoul: Stocks gain on foreign buying; won flat

[SEOUL] South Korea's KOSPI stock index rose on Friday as foreign buying helped recoup early losses. The Korean won was marginally weaker against the dollar while bond yields rose. At 0632 GMT, the KOSPI was up 1.59 points or 0.06 per cent at 2,493.97. The index ended the week with a 1.4 per cent gain.

The won was quoted at 1,066.2 per US dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.08 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,065.4. The currency has edged up 0.3 per cent on a weekly basis.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,065.31 per US dollar, up 0.32 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was trading at 1,054.35 per US dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.05 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with losses. Japanese stocks weakened 0.58 per cent.

The KOSPI is up around 1 per cent so far this year, and up by 4.07 per cent in the past 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 372,335,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 887, the number of advancing shares was 438.

Foreigners were net buyers of 100,360 million won worth of shares. The US dollar has fallen 0.05 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,056.67 per dollar on Jan 14, 2018 and low is 1,098.4 on Feb 6, 2018. In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.01 points to 107.81. 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 2.279 per cent, higher than the previous day's 2.27 per cent.

REUTERS