South Korea’s won jumped more than 1% on Monday, tracking sharp gains in the Japanese yen, as the national pension fund reviewed its investment portfolio changes to respond to currency weakness.
The won was quoted at 1,441.2 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 1.48% higher than its previous close at 1,462.5.
Japan’s top currency diplomat said the government would maintain close coordination with the US on forex and act appropriately, while declining to confirm news reports of rate checks, sending the yen sharply higher.
South Korea’s Welfare Minister said that the ministry will discuss ways to improve the National Pension Fund’s investment portfolios in response to heightened currency market volatility and a rally in the domestic stock market.
The pension fund’s growing overseas investments have often been cited by market participants as a factor weighing on the won.
In the stock market, the benchmark KOSPI closed down 40.48 points, or 0.81%, at 4,949.59, after rising as much as 0.68% earlier in the session to hit a record high of 5,023.76.
The KOSPI reversed its early gains, as the junior KOSDAQ rallied over 5% to a more than four-year high on expectations of policy efforts to boost the tech-heavy index.
Earlier in the session, a sidecar trading curb was activated on the KOSDAQ after futures rose more than 6%.
Major companies, including chipmakers and automakers, will report their fourth-quarter earnings this week.
Samsung Electronics erased early gains to end flat, even as the chipmaker plans to start production of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, or HBM4, next month and supply them to Nvidia.
Rival SK Hynix lost 4.04%.
Foreigners were net sellers of shares worth 158.7 billion won ($110.23 million).
The most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yield fell 3.9 basis points to 3.096%, while the benchmark 10-year yield slipped 5.5 bps to 3.545%.
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