South Korea stocks dip amid US rate hike bets, record COVID cases

SEOUL: Round-up of South Korean financial markets:

** South Korean shares fell on Monday amid growing bets on US Federal Reserve interest rate hikes, while local COVID-19 cases are also surging to new highs. The Korean won weakened, while the benchmark bond yield rose.

** The benchmark KOSPI fell 22.10 points, or 0.80%, to 2,728.16 as of 01:36.

** Among the heavyweights, technology giant Samsung Electronics declined 1.76% and peer SK Hynix fell 3.61%, while LG Chem fell 3.39% and Naver slipped 1.37%.

** Surprisingly, good US jobs data is adding bets that US interest rate hikes will come soon, said Na Jeong-hwan, an analyst at Cape Investment & Securities.

** The US economy created far more jobs than expected in January despite the disruption to consumer-facing businesses from a surge in COVID-19 cases, pointing to underlying strength that should sustain the expansion as the Federal Reserve starts to raise interest rates.

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** Foreigners were net buyers of 16.5 billion won worth of shares on the main board.

** The won was quoted at 1,198.3 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.11% lower than its previous close at 1,197.0.

** In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,198.3 per dollar, down 0.0% from the previous day, while in non-deliverable forward trading its one-month contract was quoted at 1,198.8.

** The KOSPI has fallen 8.38% so far this year, but lost 7.2% in the previous 30 trading sessions.

** The trading volume during the session in the KOSPI index was 195.11 million shares. Of the total traded issues of 930, the number of advancing shares was 325.

** The most liquid 3-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 4.6 basis points to 2.241%, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 3.3 basis points to 2.652%.