South Korea: Stocks, won slip on rising US yields

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index slipped on Tuesday. The Korean won weakened as rising US Treasury yields and an outlook for faster rate hike by the Federal Reserves weighed.

At 0211 GMT, the KOSPI was down 3.44 points or 0.14 per cent at 2,470.67, as chipmaker SK Hynix fell nearly 5 per cent to a two-week low on profit-taking. The company flagged slower growth for mobile chips.

The won was quoted at 1,077 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.74 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,069.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,076.4 per US dollar, up 0.35 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,059.15 per dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.09 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with mild gains. Japanese stocks rose 0.68 per cent.

The Kospi is up around 0.3 per cent so far this year, and up by 0.40 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 268,050,000 shares, and of the total traded issues of 880, the number of advancing shares was 415.

Foreigners were net sellers of 243,464 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has risen 0.94 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,053.55 per dollar on April 2, 2018, and low is 1,098.4 on Feb 6 this year.

In money and debt markets, June futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.05 points to 107.68.

REUTERS