South Korea: Stocks, won rebound on easing US-China trade tensions

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index rose on Tuesday, tracking overnight gains from Wall Street and as talks between the United States and China rekindled hopes of easing trade frictions. The Korean won and bond yields rose.

At 02:21 GMT, the Kospi was up 11.56 points, or 0.47 per cent, at 2,449.63.

The won was quoted at 1,074.8 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.59 per cent firmer than its previous close at 1,081.1.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,074.3 per US dollar, up 0.04 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,058.8 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.80 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with gains. Japanese stocks rose 1.78 per cent.

The Kospi is down around 1.2 per cent so far this year, and down by 1.69 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 173,226,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 885, the number of advancing shares was 562.

Foreigners were net sellers of 27,782 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has risen 0.74 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.

REUTERS