Seoul: Stocks shrug off Trump's tariff hike delay

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index was barely moved on Monday, shrugging of US President Donald Trump's remarks that he would delay an increase in tariffs on Chinese goods. The South Korean won rose against dollar while the benchmark bond yield was steady.

The Seoul stock market's main index added 2.06 points or 0.09 per cent to 2,232.56 points.

US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he would delay an increase in tariffs on Chinese goods that had been scheduled for Friday, which lifted Chinese stock indices more than 5 per cent each.

Compared to the sharp gain of Chinese stocks, Kospi's upside resilience was limited, said Lee Kyoung-min, analyst at Daishin Securities, adding the deadline issue has been already reflected in local markets since January.

Foreigners were net sellers of 128.8 billion won worth of shares on the main board.

The won was quoted at 1,121.0 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.37 per cent higher than its previous close at 1,125.2.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,120.4 per US dollar, up 0.1 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forward trading, its one-month contract was quoted at 1,119.3 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.56 per cent, after US stocks closed up on Friday. Japanese stocks rose 0.48 per cent.

The Kospi has risen 9.38 per cent so far this year, and gained 10.1 per cent in the previous 30 trading sessions.

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 333.06 million shares and, of the total traded issues of 897, the number of advancing shares was 437.

The won has lost 0.5 per cent against the US dollar this year.

In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.03 points to 109.18.

The Korean three-month Certificate of Deposit rate was quoted at 1.89 per cent, while the most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yielded 1.815 per cent, unchanged from the previous session.

REUTERS