Index inches down on foreigner selloff
The benchmark Kospi shed 6.41 points, or 0.30 percent, to 2,161.10
Bae Sung-young, a market analyst at KB Securities, said the foreign selloff and profit-taking by investors are to blame for losses in the main bourse.
Institutions remained net sellers of local stocks, selling more than 123 billion won ($109 million) and foreigners sold a net 102 billion won worth of stocks on profit-taking.
Most large-cap stocks were mixed across the board.
Market bellwether Samsung Electronics rose 1.54 percent to 2,104,000 won on upbeat forecasts on its first-quarter earnings. The Galaxy smartphone producer is scheduled to unveil guidance results on Friday.
SK Telecom, the No. 1 mobile carrier in the country, was up 1.18 percent to 257,000 won.
Top cosmetics producer AmorePacific added 1.07 percent to close at 283,000 won. Leading game developer NCSoft also gained, rising 1.94 percent to end at 315,000 won.
Top automaker Hyundai Motor tumbled 2.88 percent to 152,000 won on news that its March sales in China more than halved year on year in the aftermath of the Chinese government’s retaliation against Korea’s missile defense system deployment. Hyundai and its sister carmaker Kia Motors sold a combined 72,032 cars in China in March, down 52.2 percent year on year.
The No. 2 chipmaker SK Hynix fell 1.54 percent to 51,000 won and LG Chem slumped 3.41 percent to 283,000 won.
The local currency closed at 1,121.90 won against the U.S. dollar, down 6.60 won from the previous session’s close.
Bond prices, which move inversely to yields, closed higher. The yield on three-year Treasurys fell 2.2 basis points to 1.646 percent and the return on the benchmark five-year government bond shed 2.5 basis points to 1.808 percent.
BY SEO JI-EUN, YONHAP [seo.jieun@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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