South Korea's KOSPI stock index ended lower for a third straight session on Monday amid an absence of market-moving news and over worries the China-US trade spat was turning into a technology cold war. The won and the benchmark bond yield rose.
Casting a shadow over many share markets were trade worries between the world's two largest economies.
The Seoul stock market's main KOSPI ended down 1.10 points, or 0.05%, at 2,044.21 points.
Foreigners were net sellers of 194.3 billion won worth of shares on the main board.
Meanwhile, shares of Barunson Entertainment & Arts Corp surged 29.9% after its production "Parasite" won the Palme d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday.
The won was quoted at 1,184.5 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.33% higher than its previous close at 1,188.4.
In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,185.0 per US dollar, largely unchanged from the previous session, while in non-deliverable forward trading its one-month contract was quoted at 1,183.6 per dollar.
The KOSPI rose 0.16% so far this year, but lost 8.1% in the previous 30 trading sessions.
The current price-to-earnings ratio is 12.10, the dividend yield is 1.28% and the market capitalisation is 1,242.04 trillion won.
The trading volume during the session on the KOSPI index was 342.68 million shares and, of the total traded issues of 895, the number of advancing shares was 342.
The won lost 5.8% against the US dollar so far this year.
In money and debt markets, June futures on three-year treasury bonds dipped 0.01 points to 109.76, while the 3-month Certificate of Deposit rate was quoted at 1.84%.
The most liquid 3-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 1.0 basis points to 1.653%, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 0.7 basis points to 1.798%.