Seoul: Stocks turn down; won near 14-mth high against US dollar

[SEOUL] South Korea's KOSPI stock index weakened on Friday. The Korean won rose on the onshore settlement platform and bond yields climbed.

At 0632 GMT, the KOSPI was down 0.80 points or 0.03 per cent at 2,533.99. The benchmark index rose nearly one per cent to a record high during the session, but erased gains due to a large selloff from domestic institutions. The KOSPI lost 0.4 per cent on a weekly basis. The won was quoted at 1,095.98 per US dollar, down 0.03 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,093.9 per dollar.

The won was quoted at 1,097.5 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, where it ended the previous session at 1,101.4. The currency ended at near 14-month high as the dollar was broadly lower. For the week, the won gained 1.8 per cent, its largest weekly per centage gain since mid-July.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.66 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with mild gains. Japanese stocks rose 0.2 per cent.

The KOSPI is up around 25.1 per cent so far this year, and up by 6.84 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 355,217,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 872, the number of advancing shares was 404.

Foreigners were net buyers of 549,122 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has fallen 9.1 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,093.1 per dollar on Nov 17, 2017 and low is 1,211.8 on Jan 3, 2017.

In money and debt markets, December futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.06 points to 107.87. The Korean three-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.45 per cent compared with a previous close of 1.44 per cent, while the benchmark three-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.174 per cent, higher than the previous day's 2.17 per cent.

REUTERS