Renewed Support Anticipated For South Korea Stock Market

(RTTNews) - The South Korea stock market on Monday snapped the four-day winning streak in which it had advanced more than 55 points or 2 percent. The KOSPI now rests just shy of the 2,750-point plateau although it's likely to bounce higher again on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is generally positive on optimism over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were mixed and the U.S. bourses were up and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The KOSPI finished modestly lower on Monday as losses from the financials and chemicals were mitigated by support from the automobile producers and a mixed bag from the technology stocks.

For the day, the index shed 14.32 points or 0.52 percent to finish at 2,744.10. Volume was 545 million shares worth 12.2 trillion won. There were 522 decliners and 359 gainers.

Among the actives, Shinhan Financial retreated 1.60 percent, while KB Financial plunged 3.21 percent, Hana Financial slid 0.17 percent, Samsung Electronics tumbled 1.88 percent, Samsung SDI shed 0.65 percent, LG Electronics jumped 1.52 percent, SK Hynix advanced 0.90 percent, Naver tanked 2.24 percent, LG Chem declined 1.66 percent, Lotte Chemical surrendered 2.98 percent, SK Innovations skidded 1.03 percent, POSCO stumbled 2.37 percent, SK Telecom rose 0.20 percent, Hyundai Mobis slumped 1.26 percent, Hyundai Motor surged 3.92 percent, Kia skyrocketed 5.22 percent and KEPCO was unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street is upbeat as the major averages opened lower on Monday but quickly turned higher and finished solidly in the green.

The Dow jumped 188.94 points or 0.49 percent to finish at 38,778.10, while the NASDAQ rallied 168.14 points or 0.95 percent to close at 17,857.02 and the S&P 500 gained 41.63 points or 0.77 percent to end at 5,473.23.

The buying interest that emerged on Wall Street came as the markets benefitted from the positive sentiment generated last week by tamer-than-expected inflation data.

While Federal Reserve officials forecast just one interest rate cut this year following last Wednesday's monetary policy meeting, traders remain hopeful the predictions will turn out to be overly conservative if inflation continues to slow in the coming months.

On the U.S. economic front, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a report this morning showing New York manufacturing activity contracted at a notably slower rate in June.

Oil prices rose to a fresh six-week high on Monday on hopes about the outlook for energy demand. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for July ended higher by $1.88 or about 1.25 percent at $80.33 a barrel, the highest settlement since April 29.