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Kospi hits 3,300 points on US infrastructure plan

An electronic board displays the closing mark of the Korea Exchange's main board index Kospi at KB Kookmin Bank headquarters in Seoul on Friday. (KB Kookmin Bank)
An electronic board displays the closing mark of the Korea Exchange's main board index Kospi at KB Kookmin Bank headquarters in Seoul on Friday. (KB Kookmin Bank)
South Korea‘s first-tier stock bourse index Kospi hit an all-time high Friday to close at over 3,300 points, maintaining a winning streak for the fourth consecutive day.

This is the first time the composite benchmark index representing the Korea Exchange’s main board exceeded 3,300 points since its birth in 1980.

The Kospi closed at 3,302.84 points on Friday, up 0.5 percent from the previous day. Its 808 listed companies‘ combined market cap stood at 2,311.6 trillion won ($2 trillion). Kospi has gained nearly 130 percent since the market trough in March 2020.

The Kospi index hit the intraday high at 3,316.08 points at around 10:40 a.m., just a day after its record-high set at 3,292.27 points.



This comes after United States President Joe Biden approved a $1 trillion infrastructure spending deal. The plan, coupled with improved economic readings in the US, has pushed US indices such as the broad-based S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq to an all-time high Thursday.

“We expect the US infrastructure deal to escalate the enterprise value of Korean firms associated with industrial goods and fifth-generational networks,” Seo Sang-young, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities, wrote in a note to investors Friday.

Seo added that the Kospi is likely to cross 3,300 points, but urged investors to be mindful of global tapering talks that often leave investors more inclined to sell stocks.

Gainers outnumbered losers 559 to 272 on the main stock market.

Electronics goods giant Samsung Electronics inched up 0.5 percent, chipmaker SK hynix gained 2 percent and internet giants Kakao and Naver fell 1.6 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively.

Foreign investors’ net capital influx into the main bourse came to 245 billion won, and Korean institutions‘ net influx stood at 590 billion won. Korean retail traders sold off Koreans stocks as they triggered 820 billion-won net capital outflow.



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