Seoul: Stocks, won weaken on foreign selling amid trade woes

[SEOUL] South Korea's Kospi stock index and the won weakened on Thursday as concerns simmered about an escalation of trade tensions between the United States and China. Bond yields fell.

At 0630 GMT, the Kospi was down 26.08 points, or 1.10 per cent, at 2,337.83.

The won was quoted at 1,112.8 per US dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.69 per cent weaker than its previous close at 1,105.1.

In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,110.98 per US dollar, down 0.18 per cent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,094.65 per US dollar.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.59 per cent, after US stocks ended the previous session with mild gains. Japanese stocks rose 0.61 per cent.

The Kospi is down around 4.2 per cent so far this year, and down by 4.96 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 (S$1.52 trillion).

The trading volume during the session on the Kospiindex was 430,173,000 shares and, of the total traded issues of 888, the number of advancing shares was 193.

Foreigners were net sellers of 128,166 million won worth of shares.

The US dollar has risen 4.18 per cent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,053.55 per US dollar on April 2, 2018 and low is 1,116.45 on June 19, 2018.

In money and debt markets, September futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.04 points to 107.91.

The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.65 per cent, compared with the previous close of 1.65 per cent, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 2.153 per cent, lower than the previous day's 2.17 per cent.

REUTERS