South Korea: Stocks close higher

[SEOUL] South Korean stocks ended higher on Thursday, boosted by a surge in Naver's shares, while investors shrugged off soft economic data from China. 

The Seoul stock market's main KOSPI closed up 16.78 points, or 0.79 per cent, at 2,139.23.

Web portal operator Naver's stock closed up nearly 14 per cent to its highest since Feb 2018, after Yahoo Japan confirmed it was in talks to merge with Naver's unit, Line Corp.

China's industrial output grew significantly slower than expected in October, as weakness in global and domestic demand and the drawn-out Sino-US trade war weighed on activity in the world's second-largest economy.

Foreigners were net sellers of US$177.31 million worth of shares on the main board.

The KOSPI has risen 4.79 per cent so far this year, and gained 2.9 per cent in the previous 30 trading sessions.

 The trading volume during the session on the KOSPI index was 513.13 million shares and, of the total traded issues of 903, the number of advancing shares was 411.

REUTERS