SEOUL: Round-up of South Korean financial markets: South Korea's KOSPI stock index shed early gains to end flat on Monday, as foreigners turned net sellers following another week of escalating US-China trade tensions.
The Korean won climbed after a finance ministry official warned against "herd-like behaviour" and the benchmark bond yield also rose.
The Seoul stock market's main KOSPI ended down 0.08 points at 2,055.72 points.
South Korean automakers rose on optimism they would be exempt from import tariffs on vehicles the United States deems a threat to national security, after the US president said a revised trade deal could address concerns.
Hyundai Motor and its affiliate Kia Motors closed up 2.8pc and 1.6pc, respectively.
Foreigners were net sellers of 25.4 billion won ($21.27 million) worth of shares on the main board.
They were net sellers for the eighth consecutive session, the longest streak since November 2018.
The won was quoted at 1,194.2 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.13% higher than its previous close at 1,195.7.
As the currency hovers near its lowest level since January 2017, South Korea's finance ministry official in charge of currency markets said he is watching trades to see if large-scale transactions, or herd-like behaviour causes distortions in the dollar-won exchange rate.
In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,193.1 per US dollar, up 0.1pc from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forward trading its one-month contract was quoted at 1,191.9 per dollar.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.52pc, after US stocks fell .
Japanese stocks rose 0.24pc.
The KOSPI rose 0.72pc so far this year, and dropped 6.7% in the previous 30 trading sessions.
The current price-to-earnings ratio is 12.10, the dividend yield is 1.28% and the market capitalisation is 1,242.04 trillion won.
The trading volume during the session on the KOSPI index was 622.96 million shares and, of the total traded issues of 894, the number of advancing shares was 240.
The won has lost 6.6pc against the US dollar this year.
In money and debt markets, June futures on three-year treasury bonds dipped 0.03 points to 109.66, while the 3-month Certificate of Deposit rate was quoted at 1.84pc.
The most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 1.2 basis points to 1.682pc, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 2.7 basis points to 1.847pc.
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