South Korea Bourse May Hand Back Friday's Gains

(RTTNews) - The South Korea stock market on Friday wrote a finish to the five-day losing streak in which it had tumbled almost 110 points or 4.5 percent. The KOSPI now rests just beneath the 2,390-point plateau although it may turn lower again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft on recession concerns and the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were up and the U.S, bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The KOSPI finished sharply higher on Monday following gains from the financials, automobile producers, technology stocks and oil companies, while the chemicals fell under pressure.

For the day, the index climbed 17.96 points or 0.76 percent to finish at 2,389.04 after trading between 2,367.25 and 2,390.08. Volume was 309.52 million shares worth 7.09 trillion won. There were 625 gainers and 251 decliners.

Among the actives, Shinhan Financial collected 1.60 percent, while KB Financial surged 4.37 percent, Hana Financial soared 3.68 percent, Samsung Electronics gained 2.03 percent, LG Electronics improved 1.34 percent, SK Hynix spiked 3.43 percent, Naver accelerated 5.12 percent, LG Chem plunged 6.42 percent, Lotte Chemical plummeted 5.10 percent, S-Oil jumped 2.06 percent, SK Innovation rallied 3.06 percent, POSCO dropped 0.87 percent, SK Telecom fell 0.40 percent, KEPCO skyrocketed 8.53 percent, Hyundai Mobis climbed 1.21 percent, Hyundai Motor rose 0.31 percent and Kia Motors advanced 0.77 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened in the red, ticked higher midday but slumped going into the close.

The Dow dropped 305.04 points or 0.90 percent to finish at 33,476.46, while the NASDAQ sank 77.38 points or 0.70 percent to close at 11,004.62 and the S&P 500 lost 29.13 points or 0.73 percent to end at 3,934.38.

For the week, the NASDAQ plunged 4.0 percent, the S&P sank 3.4 percent and the Dow dropped 2.8 percent.

The late-day weakness on Wall Street came as traders looked ahead to this week's highly anticipated Federal Reserve meeting.

While the Fed is widely expected to slow the pace of interest rate hikes to 50 basis points, traders have recently expressed concerns about how much further the Fed will need to raise rates in order to contain inflation.

Adding to concerns about the outlook for interest rates, the Labor Department said U.S producer prices increased more than expected last month. But the negative sentiment was partly offset by a report from the University of Michigan showing a decrease in consumers' inflation expectations.

Crude oil futures fell on Friday. weighed down by concerns about the outlook for energy demand due to a possible global economic recession amid policy tightening by central banks. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for January ended lower by $0.44 or 0.6 percent at $71.02 a barrel. WTI crude futures sank 11.6 percent in the week.