South Korea stocks rise on moves to scrap planned tax on financial investments

SEOUL: Round-up of South Korean financial markets:

South Korean shares rose on Monday as the country’s opposition Democratic Party leader agreed to support the government’s move to scrap a scheme to tax profits on stock investments. The won strengthened, while the benchmark bond yield rose.

The benchmark KOSPI was up 39.24 points, or 1.54%, at 2,581.60, as of 02:46 GMT.

South Korea’s main opposition Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung said he supported the government and ruling People Power Party’s push to scrap the financial investment income tax, adding that South Korea’s stock market was suffering “structural vulnerability” and facing a downward trend unlike others.

Among index heavyweights, chipmaker Samsung Electronics rose 1.37% and peer SK Hynix gained 4.88%, while battery maker LG Energy Solution climbed 3.52%.

South Korean shares pare early losses as Samsung Electronics rebounds

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang asked memory chip maker SK Hynix to bring forward the supply of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips (HBM) called HBM4 by six months, SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won said.

Hyundai Motor added 2.11% and sister automaker Kia Corp gained 3.08%, while search engine Naver and instant messenger Kakao were up 3.12% and up 2.77%, respectively.

Of the total 938 traded issues, 583 shares advanced, while 294 declined.

Foreigners were net sellers of shares worth 16.8 billion won ($12.26 million).

The won was quoted at 1,372.8 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.40% higher than its previous close at 1,378.3.

The won has lost 6.2% against the dollar so far this year.

In money and debt markets, December futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.02 point to 105.84.

The most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 0.1 basis points to 2.943%, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 1.8 bps to 3.097%.