Seoul: Stocks hover at 3-month low, won steady

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index slipped to a 3-month low on Wednesday. The Korean won held steady on the local platform while bond yields rose.

At 01:28 GMT, the Kospi was down 9.46 points or 0.39 per cent at 2,417.88, as a host of stocks traded ex-dividend.

The won was quoted at 1,075.3 per US dollar on the onshore settlement platform , 0.07 per cent firmer than its previous close at 1,076.1.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,075.4 per US dollar, down 0.03 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it fetched 1,068 per US dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.20 per cent, after US stocks lost ground in the previous session.

Japanese stocks rose 0.08 per cent.

The Kospi is up around 19.8 per cent so far this year, and down by 4.07 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 69,981,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 870, the number of advancing shares was 320.

Foreigners were net sellers of 21,938 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has fallen 10.84 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,074.5 per US dollar on December 27 2017 and low is 1,211.8 on January 3 2017.

In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.05 points to 107.89.

The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.66 per cent, unchanged from the previous close, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.143 per cent, higher than the previous day's 2.13 per cent.

REUTERS