Short selling, a speculative stock investment technique, has come under the spotlight in the financial market as a pharmaceutical-oriented company CEO recently argued that the firm’s shares were hit by foreign speculators.The Financial Supervisory Service and the Korea Exchange launched their review as to whether there is an urgent necessity to issue a ban on short selling of “each company’s shares.”A short-selling investor seeks short-term gains by issuing “sell” orders with borrowed stocks: Th

The Cabinet on Tuesday approved the Finance Ministry’s stimulus package worth 20.3 trillion won ($17.9 billion) to revitalize the sluggish economy and boost exporters hit hard by the weaker yen caused by Japan’s monetary easing.The package highlights economic policymakers’ project to draw a supplementary budget totaling 17.3 trillion won, which marks the second-highest figure in history following the record of 28.4 trillion won in 2009 under the Lee Myung-bak administration.The other 3 trillion

Financial regulators pledged to enhance accounting oversight of non-listed big enterprises during its report to the National Policy Committee of the National Assembly on Tuesday.The policy is a development from an earlier movement by the Finance Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service to take stern punitive measures against stock manipulators.“Financial authorities will secure legal and systematic grounds to weed out fraudulent accounting practices,” said FSC chairman Shin Je-y

The National Pension Service is set to tighten its control on chaebol as the revised bill on the “10 percent rules” will likely pass through the plenary session of the National Assembly soon.The revised bill on the capital market involves financial authorities’ policy to allow the nation’s three major public funds to hold a 10 percent stake or more in a company ― as an exception from other stock investors.The bill, which recently worked through the National Policy Committee of the National Assem

TOKYO (AFP) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Japan on Sunday the United States would protect it from North Korea's threats, after securing a commitment from China to rein in the unpredictable regime.After a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo, where Patriot missiles have been deployed in anticipation of a missile launch by the North, Kerry pledged the U.S. would backstop its ally."The United States is fully committed to the defense of Japan," Kerry told a join

TOKYO (AP) -- The United States and Japan on Sunday offered new talks with North Korea to resolve the increasingly dangerous standoff over its nuclear and missile programs, but said the reclusive communist government first must lower tensions and honor previous agreements.North Korea has a clear course of action available to it, and will find "ready partners'' in the United States if it follows through, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters.Japan's foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, wh

A teenager lost his hand and a man was burned on Sunday when their clumsy attempt to make a homemade rocket from a firecracker ended in failure, police said.A 16-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man, who met through an Internet Web site, bought firecrackers at a stationary store in Guri, south of Seoul, to use them as propellant for a small rocket and tried to test it at a park, officials said.When they put the gunpowder that they had collected from several squibs into a glass container, it explod

Five big enterprises saw their “certification of excellence in fair trade” withdrawn after being named to have engaged in irregular practices including price fixing.The Fair Trade Commission said Sunday that it has downgraded the fair trade assessments on POSCO, POSCO C&C, Samsung Construction & Trade Corp., Hyundai Mobis and Shinsegae.While 27 companies were granted the certification from the antitrust regulator at the end of last year, the five players have been excluded from the fair trader l

 Fears of a massive restructuring are again lingering in the local construction industry as leading contractors are known to have logged steep losses in the first quarter amid a protracted industry downturn, data showed Sunday.    The combined operating profit of eight listed construction companies here is estimated at 197.7 billion won (US$174.9 million) for the January-March quarter, down 75.2 percent from a year ago, according to the data compiled by local corporate information tracker FnGuid

The state-controlled KDB Financial Group has shifted its policy direction under the Park Geun-hye administration away from privatization.The future business policies of KDB Financial can be seen via the inaugural speech of its new chairman Hong Ky-ttack, who took office this week.Hong said the financial group would bolster its long-standing role as the nation’s leading provider of policy loans for state projects.His remarks could mean that the Park government has scrapped the earlier project of

South Korea’s financial regulator said Tuesday that it has instructed commercial banks to roll over their loans issued to companies operating at the inter-Korean Gaeseong Industrial Complex.The Financial Supervisory Service’s regulatory policy came after North Korea suspended operations of the complex by withdrawing most of its workers in the North’s border city between Monday and Tuesday.“In a bid to minimize losses to South Korean companies operating in Gaeseong, banks will abstain from retrie

The Fair Trade Commission said Tuesday that it has levied Celltrion Holdings fines of 270 million won ($236,000) for breaching the law on holding firms that own subsidiaries.Celltrion Holdings ― whose flagship unit is biopharmaceutical firm Celltrion Inc. ― violated the law which bans a holding company from reaching a debt-to-equity ratio above 200 percent, said the FTC.According to the antitrust regulator, Celltrion Holdings posted a 217.7 percent ratio of debt to equity at the end of 2011.The