The South Korean won ended lower on Monday as a small amount of corporate dollar buying wiped out the won's brief gains in a holiday-thinned trade. The won ended the session at 1,155.0 per dollar, having risen as high as 1,145.1 from Friday's domestic close of 1,150.4.
"The market was dominated by a small amount of commercial deals as traders were reluctant to change their positions with other global centres shut for holidays," a domestic bank dealer said.
Government bond prices were a touch lower but recovered from earlier bigger losses sparked by a poor showing in the weekly bond auctions by the central bank and the finance ministry.
The auctions either failed to attract sufficient bids or the successful bid prices came in below the latest closing levels in secondary trading.
Bond trading was partly hit by the holidays and as traders awaited the release later in the week of key monthly economic indicators such as December inflation.
Treasury bond yields added 1 basis point across the board, while the March 2012 futures on 3-year treasury bonds shed 0.02 points to 104.51.