Stocks inch down in large-cap selloff
The benchmark Kospi shed 9.29 points, or 0.39 percent, to 2,343.68.
Institutions and foreign investors sold Samsung Electronics and other major technology stocks in an apparent profit-taking move. This caused the main bourse to lose ground, said Bae Sung-young, a market analyst at KB Securities.
Foreign investors unloaded more than 45 billion won ($40 million) in stocks in the trading session. That led Samsung Electronics to plunge 2.15 percent to 2,232,000 won. Its affiliate Samsung SDS fell 2.69 percent to end at 162,500 won.
Most large-cap stocks were mixed across the board, however.
Top automaker Hyundai Motor gained 1.23 percent to 164,000 won, and the state-run utility firm Korea Electric Power Corp. was up 0.36 percent to 42,250 won. LG Display shot up 6.13 percent to 32,050 won, the highest level since late January, on news reports that the company is beefing up investments in flexible organic light-emitting diode displays.
LG plans to set aside 4 trillion won for a new factory in Paju, Gyeonggi to build production lines for the sixth-generation flexible OLEDs in 2018, according to ET News.
CJ slumped 3.64 percent to 212,000 won.
On the secondary Kosdaq, market cap leader Celltrion, a biosimilar producer, advanced 2.35 percent to 95,8000 won while Kakao fell 1.11 percent to end at 98,100 won.
The local currency closed at 1,125.10 won against the U.S. dollar, down 3.40 won from the previous session’s close.
Bond prices, which move inversely to yields, closed higher. The yield on three-year Treasurys lost 1.4 basis points to 1.658 percent and the return on benchmark five-year government bonds shed 2.1 basis points to 1.869 percent.
BY SEO JI-EUN, YONHAP [seo.jieun@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.
Standards Board Policy (0/250자)