[Market Now] Cosmetic shares rise on solid earnings

Shares of cosmetics firms started off strong Wednesday morning as investors seemed to have shown confidence in their solid first-quarter earnings, an analyst said.

Korea’s top cosmetics-maker AmorePacific Corp. rose 1.56 percent to trade at 422,500 won ($366) as of 10:12 a.m. The nation’s No. 2 producer of beauty products LG Household & Health Care gained 1.07 percent to 1,037,000 won as of 10:14 a.m.

“First quarter earnings were good in the cosmetics industry. Cosmetics firms are expected to continue to post good earnings in the second and third quarter,” said Seo Young-hwa, an analyst at Kyobo Securities.

Earlier on Monday, AmorePacific said its first-quarter net profit jumped 33.1 percent on-year to post 325 billion won thanks to a strong performance in overseas markets.

LG Household & Health Care, the cosmetics arm of LG Group, reaped 234 billion won in operating profit, a 30.9 percent increase on-year in the first quarter.

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)