Blue House scandal roils local shares
The Kospi closed at 1,978.94, falling 28.45 points, or 1.42 percent, from the previous trading day.
Retail investors sold 129.9 billion won ($113.4 billion) in stocks. Foreign investors offloaded 22.3 billion won. Institutional investors, on the contrary, purchased 147.7 billion won in stock.
Large-cap shares lost the least, shedding 1.2 percent. Middle and small-cap shares proved weaker as they fell 2.3 and 2.9 percent.
All of the Kospi’s top 10 companies by market capitalization fell from the previous trading day. Samsung Electronics slipped 0.54 percent to 1,643,000 won. Chipmaker SK Hynix fell 2.38 percent to 41,000 won and portal site Naver dropped 2.48 percent to 826,000 won. Cosmetics firm AmorePacific slumped 2.91 percent to 350,000 won.
Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance, which posted steep declines a day earlier, was one of the few climbers Wednesday, closing at 284,000 won, up 0.53 percent. LG U+ grew 2.03 percent to 12,550 won and GS added 2.87 percent to end at 53,800 won.
The secondary Kosdaq reversed Tuesday’s uplift and fell 20.32 points, or 3.24 percent to 606.06. This was its lowest figure in 21 months and the steepest drop per day since June 24 when Britain voted to walk out of the European Union.
The Korean won lost 1.1 percent to 1149.8 versus the dollar, its weakest since July as President Park Geun-hye replaced her prime minister and finance chief to help stem the fallout from the Blue House scandal.
The U.S. presidential election also weighed on stocks. “With Trump, there always follows an uneasiness over whether policies will be managed properly in the U.S,” said Chihiro Ohta, a strategist at SMBC Nikko Securities.
The yield for three-year treasuries fell two basis points to 1.44 percent, while the 10-year yield fell four basis points to 1.69 percent.
BY SONG KYOUNG-SON, BLOOMBERG [song.kyoungson@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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