South Korean stocks snapped a two-session losing streak Wednesday as investors scooped up top caps that recently suffered heavy losses. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 22.34 points, or 0.71 percent, to 3,148.29. Trading volume was high at about 1.56 billion shares worth around 24 trillion won ($21.9 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 626 to 225. Retail investors purchased a net 171 billion won, while foreigners pi

Amid continuous stock markets rallies and investors’ growing interest in initial public offerings, SoluM, a spin-off from Samsung Electro-Mechanics, and LG Energy Solution, a battery split-off from LG Chem, are eyeing market debuts. Electronic components maker SoluM is looking to raise as much as 99.2 billion won ($90.60 million) from its IPO early next month, becoming the first firm to be listed on the nation’s benchmark Kospi this year, its chief executive officer said Wednesday

South Korea plans to sell a total of 8 trillion won ($7.3 billion) worth of Treasury bills in the first two months of the year to fund its expansionary fiscal policy, the finance ministry said Wednesday. The ministry plans to issue 2 trillion won in bills with a maturity of 63 days this month, and the remaining 6 trillion won will be floated next month, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Treasury bills are usually floated to raise money to cover short-term financial shortfalls a

South Korea‘s public pension scheme, the National Pension Service, pledged Wednesday to add resilience to its capital deployment to overseas assets through a structural reorganization. Through the reshuffle, the NPS Investment Management will split its global public market division in two -- with one part dedicated to investing in foreign stocks and another in foreign fixed-income products. The move will allow the NPSIM to increase the in-house investment of foreign listed stocks and its

Seeking to boost a green-led economic recovery in the post-pandemic era, South Korea’s government vowed Wednesday to spend 30 trillion won ($27.39 billion) to support local exports of renewable energy and other clean technologies. “South Korea should take a lead in the global market for green and digital businesses by embracing the ongoing paradigm shift to a green and digital economy triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki s

The value of listed bonds in South Korea jumped nearly 24 percent on-year to a new record high in 2020 due to a spike in government debt sale to tackle the coronavirus impact, data showed Wednesday. State, corporate and other bonds worth 769 trillion won ($702 billion) were newly listed on the local bourse last year, up 23.7 percent from the previous year and the largest ever, according to the data from the Korea Exchange. The jump came as the government sharply increased debt sales to finance

The looming demographic shifts in South Korea are forcing domestic insurers to turn to new growth drivers, as the companies are likely to face flagging sales of their mainstream products and underwriting risks of their new products that lead to inadequate pricing, a report showed Wednesday. The report by Moody’s Investors Service cited Korea‘s fast aging population as a key attribute, adding that the working-age population is being met with a heavy financial burden to support the c

South Korea's money supply continued to grow quickly in November last year, as loans to households and firms increased amid the coronavirus pandemic, central bank data showed Wednesday. The country's M2 stood at 3,178.4 trillion won ($2.9 trillion) as of end-November, up 0.9 percent, or 27.9 trillion won, from October, according to preliminary data by the Bank of Korea (BOK). From a year earlier, M2 surged 9.7 percent, the BOK said. A key economic indicator closely monitored by authorities, M

Banks in South Korea are expected to tighten their lending to households and the small business sector in the first quarter of this year, as credit risks will remain high amid the pandemic, a central bank poll showed Wednesday. The Bank of Korea's index measuring the banks' attitude toward fresh loans came to minus 8 for the first quarter. The lower the reading, the more likely banks will tighten their restrictions on lending. A reading below zero means that the number of lenders that will res

South Korea's exports of agricultural and livestock products advanced 7.7 percent on-year in 2020 on the back of growing demand for healthier foodstuffs amid the new coronavirus pandemic, data showed Wednesday. Outbound shipments of such goods reached a record high of $7.5 billion last year, compared with $7 billion posted in 2019, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Exports of ginseng jumped 9.3 percent to reach $229.8 million over the period

South Korean stocks opened higher Wednesday, as investors went bottom-fishing for certain large caps that suffered large losses during the key index's two-day slump from an institutional selling spree. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 15.32 points, or 0.49 percent, to 3,141.27 in the first 20 minutes of trading. The gain was largely led by chemical and tech top caps, as institutions and individuals bought on expectations of improved performance. Investor sentiment also imp

South Korea's ICT ministry said Wednesday it will invest 386.7 billion won ($353.3 million) to develop smart farms over the next seven years as part of the country's efforts to introduce new technology to the agriculture sector. The Ministry of Science and ICT said it launched a foundation to research and test next-generation smart farm technology, such as big data and artificial intelligence, to develop automated farms with improved productivity and produce quality. The foundation, jointly op

South Korea reported the largest job loss in December since 1999 as a resurgence in new coronavirus cases dealt a blow to jobs in the service sector, data showed Wednesday. For the whole of 2020, the country also shed the largest number of jobs since 1998, when the country was in the midst of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, according to Statistics Korea. The number of employed people reached 26.5 million last month, 628,000 fewer than a year earlier and marking the 10th straight month of j

Policy lender Korea Development Bank Chairman Lee Dong-gull said Tuesday that SsangYong Motor’s fate on getting financial assistance depends on its promise of stopping labor disputes until the cash-strapped company marks a turnaround. “We’ve seen many debt-ridden companies face strikes every year during annual negotiations between the labor union and management. To get rid of internal discord, the one-year group agreement needs to be extended to 3 years,” he said at the

Concerns over the government‘s announcement that it would end a temporary ban on short-selling rose among retail investors Tuesday, as they claim that the reactivation of such trading practice could create market disruptions. The Financial Services Commissions said it would end the prohibition on the trading strategy that makes a negative bets on stocks on March 15, as planned. The ban was imposed to prevent market volatility in the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic in March last year for