Seoul: Stocks, won rise, but cautious ahead of global events

[SEOUL] South Korea's KOSPI stock index edged up on Monday, with foreign net sales of the local stocks limiting the boost from Friday's US stock price gains. The won rose by half a per cent against the dollar.

At 0657 GMT, the KOSPI was up 6.13 points, or 0.25 per cent, at 2,457.65. It rose for the second session after a more than 1 per cent gain on Friday, although paring some of the gains earlier in the day.

The won was quoted at 1,073.4 per US dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.52 per cent firmer than its previous close at 1,079.0.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,072.55 per US dollar, up 0.32 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,062.45 per US dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.69 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with gains. Japanese stocks rose 1.19 per cent.

The KOSPI is down around 0.6 per cent so far this year, and down 1.93 per cent in the past 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 312,799,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 883, the number of advancing shares was 372.

Foreigners were net sellers of 151,922 million won worth of shares. The US dollar has risen 0.58 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,056.67 per dollar on Jan 14, 2018, and low is 1,098.4 on Feb 6, 2018.

In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.09 point to 107.75.

The South Korean three-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.65 per cent compared with its previous close of 1.65 per cent, while the benchmark three-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.263 per cent, lower than the previous day's 2.29 per cent.

REUTERS