Seoul shares open higher Wednesday, tracking overnight Wall Street gains

Electronic display boards at Hana Bank in central Seoul show stock and foreign exchange markets on Wednesday morning. [YONHAP]

Seoul shares opened higher Wednesday, tracking overnight Wall Street gains on eased inflation concerns.

The Kospi added 18.58 points, or 0.77 percent, to 2,423.85 as of 9:15 a.m.

Overnight, U.S. stocks finished higher, as investors bet that the U.S. Fed may not take aggressive monetary tightening down the road, with inflation data showing signs of peaking, while shrugging off China's recent upticks in Covid-19 cases and possibility of tightening virus restrictions that could send shock waves across the global economy.

The S&P 500 rose 1.36 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 1.18 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 1.36 percent.

In Seoul, most large cap shares got off to a good start.

Samsung Electronics inched up 0.66 percent, and SK hynix also rose 1.64 percent. Portal operator Naver added 2.49 percent, and messenger app operator Kakao surged 5.34 percent. LG Chem advanced 2.33 percent.

Among losers, battery maker LG Energy Solution shed 0.18 percent, and Samsung Biologics, the biotech arm of Korea's Samsung Group, lost 0.79 percent.

The local currency was trading hands at 1,347.60 won against the dollar as of 9:15 a.m., down 9 won from the previous session's close.

BY LIM JEONG-WON, YONHAP [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]