Won rebounds in Asian trade

The South Korean won rebounded from a four-week low on Monday after military drills on a disputed area ended without any retaliatory action from Pyongyang, but most other Asian currencies fell on a weaker euro. South Korea launched the live firing drills despite threats of war from Pyongyang after an emergency UN Security Council meeting failed to agree on how to defuse the crisis.
"Worries about the Korean peninsula and the eurozone may put a brake on Asian currencies' gains. But I don't expect a war here and that will not reverse the underlying trend," said June Park, an economist at Woori Investment & Securities in Seoul. The euro slid to a two-week low, looking vulnerable to more losses against the dollar after breaching chart support the previous session.
The won turned higher as investors cleared dollar-long positions in thin trading after the drills ended without any immediate retaliatory actions from North Korea. The won found further support as foreign investors continued to buy local stocks and on exporters' demand for settlements. The South Korean unit ended domestic trade up 0.2 percent at 1,150.2 per dollar from Friday's domestic close of 1,152.9.
Earlier, it weakened to as low as 1,172.3, the weakest since November 24, a day after North Korea's deadly attack on a South Korean island. Foreign investors bought a net 169.3 billion won worth of Seoul stocks on the main exchange after having purchased a combined net 1.21 trillion won during the previous five consecutive sessions. The benchmark KOSPI ended down 0.30 percent.