Stocks extend record rally for 6 trading days

Currency dealers are seen in Hana Bank's dealing room, showing an electronic board of closing figures of South Korea's stock market, in its headquarters in Seoul, Tuesday. (Yonhap)

South Korea’s stock market rallied Tuesday as investor appetite for equities in one of the world’s fastest-growing bourses continued to gain momentum. 

The Korea Exchange’s main board Kospi jumped 1.6 percent to end at 2,990.57 points Tuesday. While off to a muted start in the morning, the index shot up approximately 30 minutes before the market close. The 916 constituents’ combined market cap approached 2,060 trillion won ($1.9 trillion).

The Kospi, as a result, extended its record streak for six trading days since Dec. 24. The KRX’s development board Kosdaq also soared 0.8 percent to close at 985.76 points, reaching a fresh all-time high.

The news came after the Kospi on Monday saw the steepest rise since June and surpassed 2,900 points for the first time in history.

Leading the surge Tuesday were blue-chip stocks listed on the Kospi. Gadget-to-semiconductors giant Samsung Electronics edged up 1.1 percent, chip maker SK hynix rose 3.6 percent, biosimilar maker Celltrion gained 2 percent and automaker Hyundai Motor climbed 1 percent, internet companies Naver and Kakao inched down 0.2 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively.

Retail investors here net bought 725.5 billion won worth of Kospi-listed stocks. Foreign investors and Korean institutional investors narrowed down their volume of net sales of Kospi stocks from around 2:30 p.m., by some 600 billion won.

The Kospi had hovered around 2,200-2,400 points from the third quarter of 2020, until the benchmark index began to take a strong upshot in early November, as liquidity-driven investors bet on the anticipated semiconductor super cycle and the recovery of trades in the wake of COVID-19 treatment development, and at the same time took advantage of a weaker US dollar against the local currency.

Meanwhile, the Korean won closed at 1,087.6 won per greenback, weakening by 5.5 won from the previous session’s close.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)

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