Seoul shares dipped on Friday amid heavy volume, weighed down by technical factors after a 10 percent rally so far this year, with institutions selling to book profits and foreign investors buying less aggressively. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) dipped 1.04 percent to close at 1,993.71 points, still good enough to post a sixth consecutive week of gains, having risen 1.08 percent since Monday.
Foreign investors purchased a net 86.6 billion won ($77.6 million) worth of shares, a fifth-straight buying session but a marked reduction in volume compared with the 335.4 billion won worth of net shares bought on a daily average so far in February. Institutional selling continued to weigh, as fund pools sold a net 279.1 billion won worth of shares, while a further 173.3 billion won worth of net assets were dumped via arbitrage and non-arbitrage programme settlements.
Large-cap technology shares added weight, with Samsung Electronics down 2.03 percent and LG Electronics 3.87 percent. Banks shares struggled, as Shinhan Financial Group declined 3.44 percent while Hana Financial Group fell 2.67 percent. Trading was heavy on the day with 689.9 million shares traded on the main bourse, the largest turnover volume since January 20, 2011, while declining shares slightly outnumbered gainers 423 to 410. The KOSPI 200 index fell 1.26 percent while the junior, tech-heavy KOSDAQ index rose 0.84 percent.
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