Seoul: Stocks slip; won steps up against dollar

[SEOUL] South Korea's KOSPI stock index weakened on Tuesday. The Korean won strengthened on the local platform and bond yields rose.

At 0632 GMT, the KOSPI was down 3.69 points or 0.15 per cent at 2,478.19. The won was quoted at 1,084.9 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.33 per cent firmer than its previous close at 1,088.5.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,083.95 per US dollar, up 0.1 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it fetched 1,076.71 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.42 per cent, after US stocks finished a record-setting session overnight. Japanese stocks weakened 0.15 per cent.

The KOSPI is up around 22.5 per cent so far this year, and down by 2.65 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 304,826,000 shares, and there were 172 advancers of the total traded issues of 882. Foreigners were net buyers of 67,132 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has fallen 10.14 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,075.71 per dollar on Nov 29, 2017 and low is 1,211.8 on Jan 3, 2017.

In money and debt markets, December futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.03 points to 108.25. The South Korean three-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.66 per cent, unchanged from the prior close, while the benchmark three-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.099 per cent, higher than the previous day's 2.09 per cent.

REUTERS