Seoul: Stocks, won edge down on foreign selling, North Korea-US summit doubts

[SEOUL] South Korea's KOSPI stock index and currency weakened on Thursday on foreign selling after the government said it will disclose details of market-intervening actions taken by currency authorities. Lingering doubts about a summit between the United States and North Korea also weighed on sentiment. Local bond yields dropped.

At 0634 GMT, the KOSPI was down 11.37 points or 0.46 per cent at 2,448.45. Samsung Biologics fell 3.9 per cent on alleged accounting fraud, while Samsung Electronics declined 1 per cent.

The won was quoted at 1,081.2 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.33 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,077.6.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,080.23 per US.dollar, down 0.29 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,063.7 per dollar. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.19 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with mild gains. Japanese stocks rose 0.53 per cent.

The KOSPI slipped around 0.3 per cent so far this year, and climbed 0.64 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 588,984,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 886, the number of advancing shares was 450. Foreigners were net sellers of 270,449 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has risen 1.3 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,053.55 per dollar on April 2, 2018, and low is 1,098.4 on Feb 6 this year. In money and debt markets, June futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.06 points to107.61. The South Korean three-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.65 per cent compared with a previous close of 1.65 per cent, while the benchmark three-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.264 per cent, lower than the previous day's 2.29 per cent.

Reuters

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