South Korean stocks flat as Fed view fuels anxiety; won rises

SEOUL: Round-up of South Korean financial markets:

** South Korea's KOSPI stock index closed little changed on Friday as jitters across the globe over a potential U.S. government shutdown and further hikes in U.S. borrowing costs curbed risk appetite. The Korean won and bond yields rose.

** At 06:33 GMT, the KOSPI was up 1.37 points or 0.07 percent at 2,061.49. The benchmark index fell 0.4 percent on a weekly basis, marking its third straight losing week.

** The won was quoted at 1,122.4 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.48 percent firmer than its previous close at 1,127.8. For the week, the currency rose 0.7 percent, marking the biggest weekly gain since November 30.

** In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,122.41 per U.S. dollar, down 0.06 percent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being transacted at 1,104.65 per dollar.

** Local institutions were net buyers of 495,982 million won worth of shares, while foreigners were net sellers of 226,067 million won worth of shares.

** MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.31 percent, after U.S. stocks ended the previous session with losses. Japanese stocks weakened 1.11 percent.

** The KOSPI is down around 16.5 percent so far this year, and down by 1.55 percent in the previous 30 days.

** The current price-to-earnings ratio is 12.10, the dividend yield is 1.28 percent and the market capitalisation is 1,242.04 trillion won.

** The trading volume during the session on the KOSPI index  was 304,921,000 shares and, of the total traded issues of 894, the number of advancing shares was 381.

** The U.S. dollar has risen 5.26 percent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,053.55 per dollar on April 2 2018 and low is 1,146.26 on October 11 2018.

** In money and debt markets, March futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.17 points to 109.17.

** The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.9 percent, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 1.84 percent, higher than the previous day's 1.80 percent.