SEOUL: Round-up of South Korean financial markets: South Korea’s stock index and the won ended lower on Thursday, tracking losses in the Chinese market after the release of US Federal Reserve minutes and a semi-annual currency report.
South Korea’s central bank kept monetary policy steady on Thursday for a seventh straight meeting, as it assessed new signs of softness in the economy and the potential fallout from global trade frictions. With the BOK decision, December futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.06 point to 108.53.
At 06:31 GMT, the KOSPI closed down 19.20 points or 0.89 percent at 2,148.31.
As US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said trade negotiations with China appear to have taken a brief pause, there are still lingering concerns over the US-China trade spat, says Huh Jae-hwan, an analyst at Eugene Investment & Securities.
Federal Reserve policymakers are largely united on the need to raise borrowing costs further, minutes from their most recent policy meeting show, despite US President Donald Trump’s view that interest rate hikes have already gone too far.
Even though the US refrained from labelling China a currency manipulator, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday that trade negotiations with China appear to have taken a brief pause, dampening expectations that an agreement would come out of an upcoming G20 meeting.
Shares of South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co and its affiliates drop after US Senate panel said they had asked top US executives of Hyundai Motor Co and affiliate Kia Motors Corp 000270.KS to testify at a Nov. 14 hearing over engine fire reports.
Shares of South Korean companies related to the marijuana business jump after recreational marijuana becomes legal in Canada. BioVill Co Ltd, which acquired a licence for recreational marijuana and has permission to distribute medical marijuana, surged 29.8 percent.
The won was quoted at 1,135.2 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.77 percent weaker than its previous close at 1,126.5.
In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,135.09 per US dollar, down 0.67 percent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being asked at 1,116.45 per dollar.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.66 percent, after US stocks ended the previous session with losses. Japanese stocks weakened 0.8 percent.
The KOSPI is down around 12.2 percent so far this year, and down by 6.13 percent in the previous 30 days.
The current price-to-earnings ratio is 12.10, the dividend yield is 1.28 percent and the market capitalisation is 1,242.04 trillion won.
The trading volume during the session on the KOSPI index was 316,734,000 shares and, of the total 897 traded issues, the number of advancing shares was 256.
Foreigners were net sellers of 40,128 million won worth of shares.
The U.S dollar has risen 6.44 percent against the won this year. The won’s high for the year is 1,053.55 per dollar on April 2 and the low is 1,146.26 on Oct. 11.
The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.69 percent, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 1.987 percent, lower than the previous day’s 2.02 percent.
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Source: Brecorder
