South Korea: Stocks up, won weaker; bitcoin shares slump as government measures loom

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index rose on Wednesday. The Korean won edged down on the local platform while bond yields climbed.

At 01.06 GMT, the Kospi was up 8.12 points or 0.33 per cent at 2,469.12.

Despite the broader market's gain, South Korea's bitcoin-lined shares slumped on news a government emergency meeting on cryptocurrency. Vidente Co Ltd and Omnitel Inc , which hold stakes of South Korea's biggest bitcoin exchange Bithumb, fell 7.5 per cent and 3.9 per cent, respectively.

JCH Systems Inc , bitcoin mining-related company, dropped 4 per cent.

The won was quoted at 1,093.1 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.06 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,092.4.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,092.59 per US dollar, down 0.11 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,086 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.07 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with mild gains. Japanese stocks weakened 0.08 per cent.

The Kospi is up around 21.4 per cent so far this year, and down by 2.47 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 75,879,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 871, the number of advancing shares was 540.

Foreigners were net sellers of 38,477 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has fallen 9.42 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,075.71 per dollar on November 29 2017 and low is 1,211.8 on January 3 2017.

In money and debt markets, December futures on three-year treasury bonds were unchanged at 108.28.

The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.66 per cent compared with a previous close of 1.66 per cent, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.079 per cent, higher than the previous day's 2.08 per cent.

REUTERS