Seoul shares ended up 0.2 percent on Thursday, mere points shy of an earlier record closing high, buoyed by solid foreign buying and robust gains in crude refiners including S-Oil. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index ended up 0.22 percent at 2,115.01 points, after earlier setting a new all-time intraday high of 2,121.06 points. The KOSPI 200 March futures index rose 0.5 points to 279.40 points. The KOSPI 200 spot index advanced 0.39 points to 279.20.
The junior Kosdaq index went up 0.75 percent to 528.63. The US Federal Reserve showed on Wednesday that it was in no rush to cut short its rescue of the US economy. The KOSPI's 12-month forward PE stands at around 10, which is still notably lower than Taiwan's 13.5 and Asia Ex-Japan's 12.6, StarMine data showed. However, its 60-day relative strength index (RSI) at around 65 was approaching the overbought mark of 70.
Foreign investors were buyers of a net 352.7 billion won ($316.3 million) worth of stocks, the biggest foreign net buying amount in three weeks and picking up shares for a third consecutive session. Trading turnover stood at 7.2 trillion won compared with average daily trading turnover this month of 7.6 trillion won. Strong gains in crude refiners gave the index support on rosy earnings outlooks for the year and as rallies in US crude oil prices pointed to higher product pricing, analysts said.