Seoul: Stocks poised for fifth losing session, won steady

[SEOUL] South Korea's KOSPI stock index stumbled on Friday for the fifth session in a row, hit by rising US bond yields. The won was steady against dollar while bond yields rose.

At 01:35 GMT, the KOSPI was down 6.56 points or 0.31 per cent at 2,267.41, in line with Asian peers. South Korea's September consumer price index rose 1.9 per cent annually, just under the central bank's target level at 2 per cent, up from 1.4 per cent in August.

Shares of Samsung Electronics added 0.45 per cent after the company said its July-September operating profit likely jumped by a fifth to a record high.

Samsung SDI shares fell over 5 per cent intraday as foreigners sell, but SR Kwon, an analyst at DB Financial Investment, saw the company's performance outlook being robust as estimated earlier thanks to rising battery demand.

The won was quoted at 1,129.7 per US dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.02 per cent firmer than its previous close at 1,129.9, after it plunged in the previous session.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,129.46 per US dollar, up 0.27 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,112.35 per US dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.21 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with mild losses. Japanese stocks weakened 0.21 per cent.

The KOSPI is down around 7.8 per cent so far this year, and down by 1.22 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 (S$1.5 trillion). The trading volume during the session on the KOSPI index was 98,170,000 shares and, of the total 893 traded issues, the number of advancing shares was 197. Foreigners were net sellers of 83,480 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has risen 5.92 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,053.55 per US dollar on April 2 and the low is 1,140.4 on July 19.

In money and debt markets, December futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.06 points to 108.13. The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.65 per cent, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.083 per cent, higher than the previous day's 2.07 per cent.

REUTERS