S.Korean stocks flat, erase early gains on sluggish Chinese markets; won up
30/08/2018 08:16
* KOSPI index steady, foreigners buy
* Korean won climbs versus U.S. dollar
* South Korea bond yields up
* For the midday report, please click urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N1VL1KZ
Aug 30 (Reuters) - Round-up of South Korean financial
markets:
** South Korea's KOSPI stock index .KS11 ended flat on
Thursday, giving up early gains tracking declines in Chinese
markets. The Korean won and bond yields rose.
** At 06:31 GMT, the KOSPI was down 1.68 points or 0.07 percent
at 2,307.35. China's benchmark SSEC .SSEC and blue-chip CSI
.CSI300 both tumbled over 1 percent.
** Steel shares including Moonbae Steel 008420.KS and Bookook
Steel 026940.KS soared after U.S. President Donald Trump
permitted targeted relief from steel and aluminium quotas from
countries including South Korea. Seoul's largest steelmaker
Posco 005490.KS ended up 0.3 percent. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nS6N1VD00I
** Cosmetic and duty-free stocks exposed to China ended higher
on expectations of increasing Chinese group tourists as Beijing
lifts tourism bans in more Chinese cities. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N1VL074
** The won was quoted at 1,108.6 per dollar on the onshore
settlement platform KRW=KFTC , 0.14 percent firmer than its
previous close at 1,110.2.
** In offshore trading, the won KRW= was quoted at 1,108.81
per U.S. dollar, up 0.07 percent from the previous day, while in
one-year non-deliverable forwards KRWNDFOR= it was being
transacted at 1,091.3 per dollar.
** MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan
.MIAPJ0000PUS was down 0.34 percent, after U.S. stocks ended
the previous session with mild gains MKTS/GLOB . Japanese
stocks .N225 rose 0.09 percent.
** The KOSPI is down around 6.4 percent so far this year, and up
by 0.48 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
.KS11 was 281,975,000 shares and, of the total 896 traded
issues, the number of advancing shares was 420.
** Foreigners were net buyers of 219,561 million won worth of
shares.
** The U.S dollar has risen 3.98 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 1,140.4 on July 19.
** In money and debt markets, September futures on three-year
treasury bonds KTBc1 fell 0.05 point to 108.69.
** The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was
quoted at 1.65 percent, while the benchmark 3-year Korean
treasury bond yielded 1.982 percent, higher than the previous
day's 1.95 percent.
(Reporting by Hayoung Choi; Editing by Sunil Nair)
((hayoung.choi@thomsonreuters.com;))