South Korean stocks fall on weak Chinese data; chipmakers lead losses

SEOUL: Round-up of South Korean financial markets:

** South Korea's KOSPI stock index ended lower on Friday, dragged down by sharp losses in shares of chipmakers, amid global growth concerns after weak Chinese data. The won tumbled as unresolved Sino-U.S. trade tensions rekindled concerns. South Korean bond yields also fell.

** China's November retail sales grew at their weakest pace since 2003 and industrial output rose the least in nearly three years as the economy lost further momentum, heaping pressure on Beijing to defuse its trade dispute with the United States.

** At 06:32 GMT, the KOSPI ended 26.17 points, or 1.25 percent, lower at 2,069.38. For the week, the benchmark index fell 0.3 percent.

** Shares of South Korea's chip giants Samsung Electronics  and SK Hynix sagged as brokers lowered the companies' target price. Lack of CPU supply, cloud server error within and outside the country, and clients expecting price cuts hit the sector, said Pak Yu-ak, an analyst with Kiwoom Securities.

** Samsung Electronics slid as much as 3.3 percent, hitting its lowest since stock split in May, while SK Hynix plunged as much as 6.6 percent to lowest since June 2017.

** Shares of Samsung BioLogics Co Ltd closed down 4.5 percent after the company said on Thursday its head office has been raided by South Korean prosecutors as part of a criminal probe into alleged accounting fraud.

** Samsung C&T Corp, which jointly owns 75 percent in Samsung BioLogics with Samsung Electronics, also edged down 1.8 percent.

** The won was quoted at 1,130.8 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.65 percent weaker than its previous close at 1,123.4. The currency fell nearly 1 percent, posting its biggest weekly loss since Oct 5.

** In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,130.7 per U.S. dollar, down 0.55 percent from the previous day, while in one-year non-deliverable forwards it was being asked at 1,110.45 per dollar.

** MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 1.27 percent, after U.S. stocks ended the previous session with mild losses. Japanese stocks weakened 2.02 percent.

** The KOSPI is down around 15.1 percent so far this year, and up by 3.51 percent in the previous 30 days.

** The current price-to-earnings ratio is 12.10, the dividend yield is 1.28 percent and the market capitalisation is 1,242.04 trillion won.

** The trading volume during the session on the KOSPI index  was 439,541,000 shares and, of the total traded issues of 893, the number of advancing shares was 321.

** Foreigners were net sellers of 90,814 million won worth of shares.

** The U.S dollar has risen 6.03 percent against the won this year. The won's high for the year is 1,053.55 per dollar on April 2 2018 and low is 1,146.26 on October 11 2018.

** In money and debt markets, December futures on three-year treasury bonds rose 0.02 points to 109.17.

** The Korean 3-month Certificate of Deposit benchmark rate was quoted at 1.9 percent, while the benchmark 3-year Korean treasury bond yielded 1.783 percent, lower than the previous day's 1.80 percent.