Seoul shares rose for a third session on Thursday to hit a new near-15-month closing high, helped by gains in blue chips including Samsung Elec and shipbuilders such as Daewoo Shipbuilding. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) finished up 0.72 percent at 1,695.47 points, the highest close since late June, 2008. Foreign investors were buyers of a net 766.5 billion won worth of stocks, picking up shares for a 10th consecutive session.
Large cap blue chips rose across the board, with Samsung Electronics, the biggest share on the main KOSPI and the world's No 1 memory chip maker, rising 1.89 percent, and Hynix Semiconductor, the world's No 2 memory chip maker, gaining 0.72 percent. Shares in Samsung Securities, South Korea's top brokerage by market value, rose 1.92 percent and Mirae Asset Securities jumped 7.26 percent.
Shares in Hite Holdings dropped 10.04 percent and Hite Brewery declined 2.65 percent. But retailers including Lotte Shopping rose after data showed sales at South Korea's top three department stores in August rose at the fastest clip in seven months, providing fresh evidence of recovering domestic demand.
Retail issues were also helped by hopes for robust sales during the upcoming South Korean thanksgiving holiday next month. Lotte Shopping climbed 0.94 percent and Shinsegae gained 3.34 percent. Shipbuilders rallied amid an increasingly bullish economic outlook, with Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering rising 2.77 percent and Samsung Heavy Industries gaining 4.09 percent. Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction jumped 5.92 percent after the company said it had won a 1.27 trillion won ($1.05 billion) order to build a power plant in Saudi Arabia by 2013.
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