Profit-Taking Halts Mart's 3-Day Rally

Profit-taking sent Seoul stocks marginally lower Tuesday. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index, or Kospi, ended a three-day rally and closed at 617.99, down 0.97 points or 0.2 percent.

The main market started strongly after Wall Street surged overnight. The Kospi touched the 630-point level at one time. But profit-taking by retail and institutional investors sapped the initial strength.

While foreign investors purchased 301.8 billion won ($232.2 million) of shares, retail investors sold 145.4 billion won and institutional investors unloaded 163.1 billion won of shares.

Trade volume was up to 794 million shares, the largest this year. The daily turnover was 3.29 trillion won.

Core blue chips were mixed. Samsung Electronics rose 0.9 percent to 231,000 won. SK Telecom added 0.7 percent, to close at 230,500 won.

Pohang Iron & Steel declined 2.5 percent to 115,000 won, since investors reckoned the steel maker's six-day gain had sufficiently reflected the benefits from a higher weighting in Morgan Stanley Capital International Inc.'s Korea Index.

Korea Electric Power Corp. shed 2.2 percent, ending at 22,700 won. Korea Telecom was down 0.7 percent to 60,400 won. And Hyundai Motor plunged 4.8 percent to 23,650 won.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers 407 to 392. A total of 33 shares rose 15 percent to touch the daily ceiling. Three issues fell by that limit.

The Kosdaq market also ended Tuesday marginally lower, though the U.S. Nasdaq market jumped nearly 5 percent overnight. The composite index slipped 0.03 points, to close at 83.78.

Trade volume was 511 million shares, valued at 2.62 trillion won.

Index heavyweight telecommunication and dot-com shares were mixed. Korea Telecom Freetel shed 0.4 percent, ending at 44,850 won. LG TeleCom declined 1 percent to 6,830 won. Hanaro Telecom gained 0.7 percent, finishing at 4,280 won. Daum Communications climbed 1.3 percent to 45,950 won. Haansoft added 1.4 percent, ending at 6,000 won.

Losing issues led gainers 313 to 253. Twenty-eight shares jumped by the daily limit of 12 percent and three hit the downward limit.

by Moon So-young