Seoul: Stocks rise on tech rally; won flat

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index rose more than one per cent on Thursday as tech shares rallied, while the Korean won barely moved against the dollar and bond yields fell.

At 06:30 GMT, the Kospi was up 26.83 points or 1.1 per cent at 2,475.64. The sub-index for electric and electronics jumped 3.2 per cent on optimistic market sentiment after Samsung Electronics posted a record quarterly profit. Shares of Samsung Electronics gained 3.5 per cent, while those of SK Hynix rose nearly 5 per cent.

LG Electronics ended trade up one per cent after it posted the highest quarterly profit for the Jan-March period since 2009.

Hyundai Motor, however, dropped 4.6 per cent as its first-quarter net profit halved, missing estimates by a big margin.

The won was quoted at 1,080.9 per US dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.03 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,080.6.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,080.11 per US dollar, up 0.1 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being asked at 1,065.25 per US 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 mild gains. Japanese stocks rose 0.47 per cent.

The Kospi is down around 0.8 per cent so far this year, and up 1.5 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 514 million shares and, of the total traded issues of 882, the number of advancing shares was 470.

Foreigners were net buyers of 170,923 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has risen 1.29 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 low is 1,098.4 on Feb 6.

In money and debt markets, June futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.05 points to 107.63.

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 2.236 per cent, lower than the previous day's 2.25 per cent.

REUTERS