Seoul: Stocks slip, won sedate against US dollar

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index weakened on Thursday. The Korean won barely moved on the local platform while bond yields fell.

At 06:33 GMT, the Kospi was down 11.84 points or 0.47 per cent at 2,487.91.

The won was quoted at 1,072 per US dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.01 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,071.9. In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,070.88 per US dollar, down 0.17 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it fetched 1,064.05 per US dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.32 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with modest losses. Japanese stocks weakened 0.33 per cent.

The Kospi is up around 1.3 per cent so far this year, and up by 1.75 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 419,706,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 884, the number of advancing shares was 380.

Foreigners were net buyers of 61,049 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has risen 0.43 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,059 per US dollar on January 8 and low is 1,073.2 on January 11.

In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.08 point to 107.79.

The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.66 per cent, unchanged from its previous close, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.149 per cent, lower than the previous day's 2.17 per cent.

REUTERS