Facebook stumbled on its first trading day Friday as shares ended barely above the starting price after a glitch-plagued market debut on the Nasdaq that failed to live up to its enormous hype.   The stock, priced at $38 on Thursday in the largest-ever initial public offering for a technology firm, eked out a gain of just 0.61 percent to end at $38.23, amid record volume of more than 575 million sh

The nation’s top financial regulator ordered Hana Bank to punish 28 employees for irregularities including embezzlement of gift certificates, mishandling of project financing loans and violation of board rules. The Financial Supervisory Service also slapped Hana Bank with 37.5 million won ($32,000) in fines and issued a warning against it on Thursday. Hana Bank employees were found to have fabricated papers to embezzle gift cards worth some 17.4 billion won for three years after June 2008, the F

Seoul’s financial markets sank on Friday, with the benchmark KOSPI crashing below 1,800 points for the first time in five months as the eurozone crisis deepened.Bank runs and downgraded credit ratings in Greece and Spain, coupled with discouraging U.S. economic reports that caused overnight losses on Wall Street, increasingly unnerved investors. The KOSPI closed at 1,782.46 points on Friday, down 3.4 percent from the day before.Samsung Electronics Co., the biggest blue chip traded on the Seoul b

Korean lender also set to bring BOA-Merrill Lynch, Royal Bank of Scotland to court for same reasonsWoori Bank sued Citigroup Inc. for fraud to redeem losses from collateralized debt obligations, a type of structured asset-backed security. The Korean lender said it was set to lodge lawsuits against BOA-Merrill Lynch and Royal Bank of Scotland with a U.S. court on Friday for the same reasons. Woori Bank suffered heavy losses worth about 1 trillion won ($852 million) after the U.S. subprime crisis

The use of Internet banking in South Korea accelerated in the first quarter from three months earlier as more people conducted financial transactions online, the central bank said Thursday.Online banking transactions reached an average of 45.23 million per day in the January-March period, up 9.5 percent from the previous quarter, according to the Bank of Korea. The first-quarter data also showed a daily average of 33.18 trillion won ($28.43 billion) being sent online, a gain of 0.5 percent compa

South Korea’s credit card spending jumped 15.9 percent in April from a year earlier due to modest improvements in domestic economic conditions, a credit association said Thursday.Purchases made with credit cards totaled 42.9 trillion won ($36.7 billion) last month, up 6.6 trillion won from a year earlier, according to the Credit Finance Association. Compared with the previous month, however, products bought with plastic, which include credit, debit and prepaid cards, dipped 0.09 percent.The soli

South Korean companies’ overseas direct investment soared 18.7 percent on-year to $10.98 billion in the first quarter of this year as firms beefed up their operations abroad, the government said Wednesday.The total is the fifth-largest quarterly overseas direct investment since such data tracking began in 1980, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said. A record $18.09 billion was recorded in the second quarter of last year.“There has generally been a steady rise in overseas direct investment in

SK Telecom, Korea’s largest mobile carrier, has successfully raised funds in the Swiss bond market, despite Europe’s economic woes.The company said that it issued Swiss franc-denominated bonds worth CHF 300 million ($318 million), with an annual interest rate of 1.75 percent at a maturity of 5 years.The fund-raising was part of plans to seek low-cost capital sources and repay its debt, it said. The company’s outstanding debt stood at 11.6 trillion won at the end of 2011, according to financial s

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Federal Reserve policymakers are open to further efforts to stimulate the U.S. economy if growth falters or threats escalate.Minutes of the central bank’s April 24-25 meeting released Wednesday stated that “several members” thought additional Fed support could be needed if the recovery lost momentum or if the risks to the economy became great enough.The minutes did not spell out what circumstances would trigger further Fed efforts to lower interest rates to boost the economy. B

South Korean stocks gained 0.26 percent Thursday on a modest technical rebound from the previous session’s tumble triggered by mounting Greek and eurozone woes, analysts said. The local currency rose against the U.S. dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index picked up 4.71 points to 1,845.24, after falling for six straight sessions. Trading volume was light at 434 million shares worth 5.58 trillion won ($4.78 billion), with gainers outpacing losers 449 to 382.“The bourse recovered b

South Korea should seek to resuscitate its economic vitality and plot a policy of long-term sustainable growth to counter mounting global financial uncertainty, the top economic policymaker said Wednesday.Minister of Strategy and Finance Bahk Jae-wan told a weekly meeting of economic officials that anti-austerity election results in European countries such as Greece have fueled financial market jitters.“To effectively cope with such developments, the country must take steps to ensure long-term e