SEOUL: The South Korean won scaled near a six-year peak against the dollar on Monday morning, but it came off session highs on suspected intervention by the local foreign exchange authorities.
The won hit an intraday high of 1,010.8 per dollar, the strongest since July 31, 2008, but quickly pulled back to 1,012.5 on the suspected dollar-buying intervention by local authorities.
"It appears to be an intervention. (The local authorities) are purchasing the dollars through two foreign banks," a currency dealer at a foreign bank said.
It was quoted at 1,011.6 versus the dollar as of 0342 GMT, up 0.2 percent from Friday's onshore close at 1,013.4.
On Friday, a Bank of Korea data showed the country posted another sizeable current account surplus in May.
The won's rapid rise at the start of this year drew concern from South Korean foreign exchange authorities as policy makers worried it could hurt the nation's exporters. The currency is up 4.3 percent so far in the first half of 2014, and is on track to post a fifth consecutive month of gains.
In the stock market, the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) added 0.4 percent to 1,995.66 points as of 0342 GMT, but looked set to book losses of 0.8 percent for the first half of the year.
"Should the US and China indicators this week show the global economic recovery is intact, the market will probably move higher," said Kim Sung-hwan, an analyst at Bookook Securities. "However, the strength of the momentum will be determined by corporate earnings, especially that of Samsung Electronics."
The quarterly earnings season will get underway mid-July. Domestic institutional investors positioned as net buyers by purchasing 34 billion won ($33.62 million) worth of KOSPI shares near mid-session and appeared set to extend a net buying spree to an eighth consecutive session, the longest streak since December 2013.
Offshore investors also purchased a net 62 billion won. DRAM memory-chip maker SK Hynix Inc, the most actively traded stock in the morning session, rose 1.7 percent.
Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co Ltd advanced 3.4 percent after the company on Monday said it had won an order worth 3.53 trillion won to upgrade oil refinery facilities in Venezuela from Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A.
In contrast, Hyundai Motor Co, the second largest component in KOSPI, slid 1.1 percent as the appreciation in the local currency raised concerns about a cut in export earnings.
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