Kospi carries on record run on world rally

The benchmark index of South Korea‘s main bourse continued its run into an unprecedented high for the fourth straight trading day Thursday, riding on the US market rallies after the release of the US Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index closed at record-high at 2,342.93, rising 1.1 percent compared to Wednesday.

The top-tier stock market opened a tad higher at 2,325.49 compared to record closing Wednesday at 2,317.34. The index began to hover at around 2,340 after a surge until at around 10:20 a.m.

Foreign investors and institutional investors both showed robust buying trends in the market. Foreign investors bought 118.3 billion won ($106 million) of shares, while institutional investors bought shares worth 265.7 billion won in total. Individual investors sold shares valued at 405.3 billion won.

Market bellwether Samsung Electronics ended its two-day slide Thursday. Samsung Electronics closed at 2,284,000 won, up 1.78 percent from Wednesday.

The bull ride took a cue from Wall Street gains Wednesday on favorable market reactions to the Fed‘s sign of raising the interest rates soon.

Local reports, however, pointed to a dwindling trade volume of individual investors in the local stock markets and subsequent over-reliance on offshore and institutional investors. Individuals traded 2.19 trillion won worth of shares per day this year, down from 2.25 trillion won in 2016 and 2.89 trillion won in 2015, according to data from the Korea Exchange.

Local currency strengthened against the greenback. The Won was traded at 1,116.6 won against the dollar, up 6.4 won, or 0.57 percent from the previous day at around 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

By Son Ji-hyoung (consnow@heraldcorp.com)