Three-day rally peters out as Kospi falls 1%
Stocks snapped a three-day rally to end lower Tuesday as foreign and institutional investors offloaded large-cap stocks amid a lack of market momentum. The won sharply fell against the dollar.The Kospi lost 22.95 points, or 1.01 percent, to close at 2,239.69.
United States markets were closed on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Huh Jae-hwan, an analyst at Eugene Investment, said Korean stocks extended losses on Tuesday on the news that three rockets fell close to the U.S. embassy in the Green Zone in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
He also said an outbreak of a new coronavirus in China weighed heavily on the local stock market.
In Seoul, most large-cap stocks were mixed.
Samsung Electronics lost 1.60 percent to close at 61,400 won, and chipmaker SK Hynix lost 0.60 percent to 99,300 won. Steelmaker Posco fell 1.21 percent to 244,000 won.
Automaker Hyundai Motor plunged 0.85 percent to 117,000 won, while its affiliate Kia Motors stayed the same as the previous session’s close of 41,600 won.
Korean cosmetics maker Amorepacific shed 2.67 percent to 219,000 won, and LG Household & Health Care, the homegrown beauty company, fell 3.17 percent to 1,343,000 won.
Among gainers, Samsung BioLogics, a biopharmaceutical unit of Korea’s conglomerate, Samsung Group, rose 0.57 percent, and Celltrion, a major biotech firm, was up 1.16 percent.
SK Telecom, Korea’s mobile carrier, rose 0.21 percent to 236,500 won, and game publisher NCSoft added 0.32 percent to 632,000 won.
Financial firms were mixed, with Shinhan Financial Group rising 0.24 percent to 41,400 won, and KB Financial Group sliding 1.97 percent to 47,350 won. Another unit of Samsung Group, Samsung Life Insurance, sank 0.68 percent to 73,300 won.
The local currency closed at 1,167.00 won against the dollar, sharply up 8.90 won from the previous session’s close.
The secondary Kosdaq shed 6.95 points, or 1.02 percent, to close at 676.52.
For bond prices, the yield on three-year bonds lost 6.6 basis point to 1.392 percent, while the 10-year government bond market was closed in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq will resume normal trading hours.
BY KIM YEON-AH, YONHAP [kim.yeonah@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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