Tech Shares May Boost South Korea Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The South Korea stock market has alternated between positive and negative finishes through the last four trading days since the end of the three-day slide in which it had slumped almost 40 points or 1.6 percent. The KOSPI now sits just above the 2,580-point plateau and it's likely to tick higher again on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to higher, likely driven by the latest earnings news. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were mixed and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The KOSPI finished modestly lower on Thursday following losses from the financial shares, technology stocks and industrial issues.

For the day, the index lost 18.59 points or 0.72 percent to finish at 2,581.03 after trading between 2,578.80 and 2,600.26. Volume was 336.43 million shares worth 9.47 trillion won. There were 613 decliners and 256 gainers.

Among the actives, Shinhan Financial fell 0.36 percent, while KB Financial skidded 1.17 percent, Hana Financial sank 0.78 percent, Samsung Electronics plunged 4.23 percent, Samsung SDI slumped 1.06 percent, LG Electronics tanked 2.31 percent, SK Hynix climbed 1.12 percent, Naver dipped 0.23 percent, LG Chem advanced 1.08 percent, Lotte Chemical tumbled 1.83 percent, SK Innovation shed 0.77 percent, POSCO lost 0.73 percent, SK Telecom improved 1.06 percent, KEPCO surged 5.01 percent, Hyundai Mobis jumped 1.42 percent, Hyundai Motor plummeted 5.19 percent and Kia Motors surrendered 2.26 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is murky as the major averages opened mixed on Thursday and finished the same way.

The Dow dropped 140.59 points or 0.33 percent to finish at 42,374.36, while the NASDAQ climbed 138.83 points or 0.76 percent to close at 18,415.49 and the S&P 500 rose 12.44 points or 0.21 percent to end at 5,809.86.

The strength on the tech-heavy NASDAQ was spurred by strong quarterly earnings from the likes of Tesla (TSLA) and UPS (UPS).

On the other hand, the Dow was weighed by weak quarterly earnings news from IBM (IBM), Honeywell (HON) and Boeing (BA).

Oil prices fell on Thursday, extending losses from the previous session as concerns about excess supply and weak crude consumption in China weighed. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for December ended down $0.58 or 0.8 percent at $70.19 a barrel.