** China's yuan dipped against the dollar as traders awaited Beijing and Washington's next moves in their trade tariff dispute, taking a breather after a rapid sell-off earlier this week that sparked fears of an all-out currency war.

** Lingering worries over their trade spat capped gains of Asian stocks after Bloomberg reported that Washington is delaying a decision about licences for U.S. firms to restart trade with Huawei Technologies.

** China lowered its official yuan midpoint yet again, but the pace of its weakness has slowed, while the won has stabilised a bit, said Noh Dong-kil, an analyst at NH Investment and Securities. Given the U.S. delay on Huawei, it's hard to say sentiment is positive, he added.

** The Seoul stock market's main KOSPI closed up 17.14 points or 0.89% at 1,937.75 points.

** The won was quoted at 1,210.5 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.11% lower than its previous close at 1,209.2.

** The benchmark index and the Korean won ended lower for a third consecutive week, dropping 3% and 1% from the previous week, respectively.

** Shares of YG Entertainment ended down 11% after the police launched a preliminary investigation into the company's founder on suspected criminal activity related to gambling.

** Shares of South Korean cosmestic firm Kolmar Korea  lost 4.9% after its chairman showed employees a video praising Japan's prime minister amid a bitter trade row between the two Asian nations.

** Foreigners were net sellers of 1.9 billion won ($1.57 million) worth of shares on the main board.

** In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,209.9 per U.S. dollar, down 0.2% from the previous session, while in non-deliverable forward trading its one-month contract  was quoted at 1,208.9 per dollar.

** MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan  was up 0.23%, after U.S. stocks jumped. Japanese stocks rose 0.44%.

** The KOSPI dropped 5.06% so far this year, and lost 10.0% 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 in the KOSPI index  was 644.23 million shares and, of the total traded issues of 894, the number of advancing shares was 535.

** The won lost 7.8% against the U.S dollar so far this year.

** In money and debt markets, September futures on three-year treasury bonds fell 0.08 points to 111.18, while the 3-month Certificate of Deposit rate was quoted at 1.49%.

** The most liquid 3-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 2.1 basis points to 1.186%, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 1.6 basis points to 1.285%.