Seoul shares edged up to set a fresh six-month closing high on Friday after a rangebound session, but profit-taking slowed their rally to a snail's pace with investors reluctant to take more aggressive bets on underlying earnings caution. The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) closed up for the fifth straight session, gaining 0.39 percent to 1,964.83 points, a new six-month closing peak.
Foreign investors bought shares for the 12th straight day, the longest streak since early April last year, gobbling up a net 466 billion won ($415.4 million) worth of stocks. Institutions and retail investors continued offloading shares, selling a net 156.1 billion won and 251 billion won worth respectively.
Gains were led by brokerages, with Samsung Securities soaring 5.81 percent while Woori Investment & Securities rose 2.32 percent. Samsung Electronics Co climbed 1.08 percent to a new all-time record closing high of 1,125,000 won after announcing record profits for the fourth quarter driven by robust smartphone sales.
Rival LG Electronics gained for a fifth straight session, soaring 5.16 percent on the day after local media said it had sold more than 1 million units of its flagship 4G handset, the Optimus LTE, during its first 100 days of release. 443.1 million shares changed hands in the session with gainers outnumbering losers 496 to 331. The KOSPI 200 index rose 0.44 percent while the junior KOSDAQ index closed 0.12 percent lower.
Comments
Comments are closed.