South Korea: Stocks pare losses on China rate cut

[SEOUL] South Korean shares closed slightly lower on Monday, recouping most of their early losses after China cut a key lending rate for the first time in over four years and raised hopes of further stimulus to prop up growth. 

The Seoul stock market's main KOSPI index closed down 1.49 points, or 0.07 per cent, to 2,160.69.

Earlier in the day, it fell as much as 0.47 per cent as foreigners continued to offload equities ahead of the rebalancing of MSCI index and cautious investors awaited concrete evidence of progress in Sino-US trade talks.

Continued selloff by foreign investors and increasingly violent protests in Hong Kong outweighed news of the interest rate cut in China, according to Kiwoom Securities analyst Seo Sang-young.

The KOSPI has risen 5.86 per cent so far this year, while it gained 3.2 per cent in the previous 30 trading sessions.

The trading volume in the KOSPI index was 483.35 million shares and, of the total traded issues of 905, the number of advancing shares was 368.

REUTERS