Foreigners’ buying spree boosts market

Korean shares rallied yesterday, thanks to improved market data in the United States and the strongest buying spree by foreigners this year.

The benchmark Kospi rose 27.26 points to 1,957.83, up 1.41 percent from Thursday.

Despite continuing concerns about a sluggish Chinese economy, the Korean market rallied significantly in the past three days, owing to an improving U.S. manufacturing industry and positive consumer sentiments, said a report by Korea Exchange.

Foreigners bought 327.7 billion won ($305.6 million) worth of local shares yesterday, the largest amount since early this year.

Large caps led the rally with a 1.7 percent increase.

Electronics shares climbed 2.7 percent, transport equipment shares rose 2.3 percent, financial stocks increased 1.2 percent, and service stocks inched up 0.9 percent.

In order of market capitalization, No. 1 Samsung Electronics jumped 3.42 percent to 1.33 million won. Hyundai Motor, the second largest, went up 2.7 percent to 228,000 won. Hyundai Mobis increased 1.64 percent to 312,500 won. SK Hynix rose 1.29 percent to 39,300 won.

Bucking the trend, No. 5 Posco fell 0.34 percent to 290,000 won.

Naver, which suffered a temporary plunge in the morning on the news of Facebook’s acquisition of Whatsapp, gained 2.32 percent to close at 705,000 won.

Kia Motors rose 2.2 percent to 53,500 won.

Shinhan Financial Group advanced 1.59 percent to 44,700 won. KB Financial Group jumped 3.49 percent to 38,600 won.

SK Telecom, the biggest mobile carrier, inched up 0.48 percent to 209,500 won.

LG Chem rose 0.6 percent to 251,000 won.

LG Electronics also climbed 0.66 percent to 61,100 won.

The won dropped 0.8 percent this week and was little changed today at 1,072.09 per dollar at the close in Seoul, according to Bloomberg data.

One-month implied volatility, a gauge of expected moves in the exchange rate used to price options, rose 114 basis points in the past five days and fell 16 basis points today to 7.67 percent.

BY SONG SU-HYUN, BLOOMBERG [ssh@joongang.co.kr]