Index Restructure Lifts Seoul Shares

Shares in Seoul rose for a third consecutive session Monday. The benchmark index hit a four-month high on heavy foreign buying, sparked by Korea's increased country weighting in the Morgan Stanley Capital International's emerging markets index.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index surged 18.42 points, 3.1 percent, to 618.96. Trading was extremely heavy, with 744 million shares changing hands, compared with the daily average of around 340 million shares. Daily turnover reached 3.1 trillion won ($2.4 billion). Advancing issues overwhelmed decliners 706 to 128, with 47 shares unchanged. Seventy stocks jumped by the 15 percent daily limit, while one stock fell by that limit.

Foreign investors bought shares worth 180.7 billion won in the cash market and purchased 4,897 contracts in the futures market, the third largest this year.

Financial stocks, brokerage, insurance and bank shares, led the day's gains. Good Morning Securities Co., which was newly included in the MSCI index, rose 8.6 percent to 6,220 won. Ssangyong Fire & Marine Insurance Co. and Korea Exchange Bank all surged by 15 percent.

Large caps also closed higher to boost the index. Samsung Electronics gained 3.9 percent to 229,000 won and Pohang Iron & Steel Co. added 4.4 percent to 118,000 won.

The Kosdaq market turned higher, but gains were modest amid a lack of strong buyers. Its composite index inched up 0.78 points, or 0.9 percent, to end at 83.81. Asiana Airlines, whose inclusion in the MSCI index had not been anticipated, shot up by the daily limit of 12 percent to 2,300 won.

by Kim Hyun-chul