South Korea stocks track Wall Street higher on vaccine, US stimulus hopes

SEOUL: Round-up of South Korean financial markets: South Korean shares climbed on Wednesday, tracking overnight gains in Wall Street, as investor hopes for more fiscal stimulus offset worries about rising domestic coronavirus cases.

The Korean won and the benchmark bond yield strengthened.

By 0228 GMT, the benchmark KOSPI was up 38.04 points, or 1.41%, at 2,738.97.

South Korea reported 686 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday as it battles a third wave of infection that is threatening to overwhelm its healthcare system.

Britain on Tuesday became the first Western nation to begin a wide vaccination campaign, while US drugmaker Johnson & Johnson reported that it could obtain late-stage trial results for a single-dose vaccine in January, earlier than expected.

The Trump administration proposed a $916 billion coronavirus relief package on Tuesday, after congressional Democrats shot down a suggestion for a pared-down plan from the Senate's leading Republican, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Sentiment is definitely up after the relief package bill made some progress in the United States, and vaccine hopes are helping as well, said Seo Sang-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.35% on Tuesday, the S&P 500 gained 0.28%, in part due to a boost from the healthcare sector on positive COVID-19 vaccine news.

Foreigners were net buyers of 98.8 billion won worth of shares on the main board.

The won was quoted at 1,084.2 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.11% higher than its previous close at 1,085.4.

The KOSPI rose 24.63% so far this year, and gained 15.9% in the previous 30 trading sessions.

The trading volume during the session in the KOSPI index was 583.38 million shares. Of the total traded issues of 907, the number of advancing shares was 582.

The won gained 6.7% against the dollar so far this year.
In money and debt markets, December futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.01 points to 111.68.

The most liquid 3-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 0.8 basis points to 0.967%, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 1.3 basis points to 1.655%.