South Korean shares closed slightly higher as bargain hunters returned to major technology stocks, lifting the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) back above 7,000 points, Yonhap reported on October 2.
The tech buying outweighed investor concerns over rising interest rates and oil prices. Benchmark US Treasury yields eased overnight after reaching fresh multi-decade highs, which helped Wall Street finish modestly higher, although rising crude prices limited those gains.
The KOSPI opened lower but recovered to close up 32.39 points, or 0.45%, at 7,003.74. In New York the previous session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.04%, the S&P 500 gained 0.19% and the Nasdaq composite added 0.04%.
Trading in Seoul was light. Volume reached 227.64mn shares worth KRW15.29 trillion ($11.4bn), and advancing stocks outnumbered decliners by 500 to 359.
Institutional investors bought a net KRW381.38bn. Individuals sold a net KRW1.72 trillion and foreign investors sold a net KRW143.78bn.
“The domestic stock market is surrounded by macroeconomic uncertainties, including rising interest rates and increased volatility in oil prices, but expectations for an earnings recovery are improving, providing upward momentum,” said Han Ji-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, according to Yonhap.
Large-cap shares ended mixed. Samsung Electronics closed unchanged at KRW276,000, while chipmaker SK hynix rose 0.44% to KRW1.84mn.
SK Square, the parent company of SK hynix, gained 0.43% to KRW1.16mn. Samsung Electro-Mechanics, the electronics component affiliate of Samsung Electronics, climbed 1.28% to KRW1.58mn.
The won was quoted at 1,350.6 per dollar at 3:30pm local time, up 7.8 won from the previous session’s close.
Meanwhile, government bond prices, which move inversely to yields, closed higher. The yield on three-year Treasury bonds fell 7.3 basis points, and the yield on benchmark five-year government bonds dropped 7.1 basis points to 4.129%.