Seoul shares narrow losses on tech gains
Seoul, Oct 2
Seoul shares narrowed their losses late on Friday morning as investors engaged in profit-taking while scooping up major technology stocks ahead of the holiday.
After opening 0.47 per cent lower, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) gained 16.72 points, or 0.24 per cent, to 6,977.07 as of 11:20 am, reports Yonhap news agency.
The market will be closed Monday for a national holiday.
Overnight, U.S. stocks finished modestly higher as benchmark Treasury yields eased from fresh multi-decade highs, although gains were capped by rising crude oil prices.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.04 percent, while the benchmark S&P 500 gained 0.19 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite added 0.04 percent.
In Seoul, market heavyweights were trading mixed.
Top market cap Samsung Electronics inched up 0.09 percent, and chip giant SK hynix gained 0.44 percent.
SK Square, the parent company of SK hynix, declined 0.43 percent, while Samsung Electro-Mechanics, an electronics component affiliate of Samsung Electronics, inched down 0.13 percent.
The Korean won was trading at 1,359 won against the U.S. dollar as of 11:20 a.m., up 0.6 won from the previous session's close.
Meanwhile, South Korea's consumer prices rose 2.9 per cent in September from a year earlier, data showed on Friday, with energy costs remaining elevated while prices of agricultural goods declined.
According to data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics, consumer price growth returned to 2 percent levels in September.
The consumer price increase came to 2.8 percent in July and 3.1 percent in August.
The latest report was released at a time when prices of petroleum products remained elevated amid the prolonged geopolitical tension in the Middle East, rising 14.8 percent on-year in September.
In detail, diesel prices rose sharply by 20 percent, and gasoline prices shot up 11.8 percent.
South Korea relies heavily on imports to meet its energy needs.
The government, meanwhile, said the fuel price cap currently in place is estimated to have limited the overall increase in consumer prices by 0.6 percentage point.
— IANS
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