(RTTNews) - The South Korean stock market has finished lower now in four straight sessions, shedding more than 30 points or 3 percent in the process. The KOSPI is closing on support at 1,175 points, but now investors are hoping that some bargain hunting will help to lift the index back into positive territory at the opening of trade on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is essentially flat with a touch of upside. Some better than expected economic news out of the United States served to slow down the free fall that stocks have seen through much of this week. The European markets still finished deeply in the red, but some of the U.S. bourses managed to creep into positive territory at the close of trade - and the Asian markets are tipped also for slight gains.

The KOSPI finished modestly lower again on Thursday, shrugging off an interest rate cut from the central bank. The financials finished sharply lower, while the technology issues and the construction stocks also saw significant declines.

For the day, the index lost 10.34 points or 0.87 percent to close at 1,179.84 after trading between 1,162.58 and 1,187.35. Volume was 480.5 million shares worth 4.7 trillion won, with losers outpacing gainers 436 to 411.

Among the decliners, LG Display declined 2.7 percent, while POSCO fell 3.3 percent, Woori Finance Holdings plunged 7.5 percent, KB Financial Group dropped 5.4 percent, Shinhan Financial Group lost 4.8 percent, Hana Financial Holdings sank 5.3 percent and Samsung C&T fell 2.9 percent. Bucking the trend, Samsung Electronics was up 1.4 percent and Korea Electric Power Corp was up 1.6 percent.

Wall Street offers a conflicting lead as stocks moved sharply higher going into the close of trading on Thursday after spending most of the session in negative territory. The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 surged above the unchanged line in late-day trading, but the Dow remained stuck in the red. The weakness seen for much of the trading day came as traders reacted negatively to a mixed bag of economic news. Nonetheless, most stocks rebounded in the final hour of trading.

The retail sales report for the month of January was released before the opening bell, showing an unexpected increase in sales for the month. According to the Commerce Department report, retail sales rose 1.0 percent in January following a revised 3.0 percent decline in December. Economists had expected sales to fall by 0.8 percent compared to the 2.7 percent decrease originally reported for the previous month. The increase came as a surprise, although the growth was largely due to significant discounts by retailers following the weak holiday shopping season.

At the same time, the Labor Department said initial jobless claims in the week ended February 7 fell to 623,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 631,000. Economists had been expecting claims to fall to 610,000 from the 626,000 originally reported for the previous week. The report also showed that the four-week moving average rose to 607,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 583,500, while continuing claims in the week ended January 31 rose to another new record high of 4.810 million.

The volatility in the markets came as some traders are now looking beyond the proposed economic stimulus bill, waiting for the details of the Obama administration’s financial rescue plan after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s broad outline of the plan contributed to a sell-off on Wall Street on Tuesday.

The major averages ended the session mixed, with the Dow finishing the day modestly lower. While the Dow closed down 6.77 points or 0.1 percent at 7,932.76, the Nasdaq closed up 11.21 points or 0.7 percent at 1,541.71 and the S&P 500 closed up 1.45 points or 0.2 percent at 835.19.

In economic news, the Bank of Korea on Thursday morning trimmed interest rates by 50 basis points from 2.50 percent to a record low 2.00 percent - in line with analyst expectations and marking the central bank’s sixth rate cut in the last four months.

The BoK pared rates by 25 basis points on October 9 and then slashed them again by 75 basis points in an emergency meeting on October 27. Then on December 11, the bank slashed rates by another 100 basis points in the largest rate cut in the bank’s history - since it started adopting a benchmark interest rate in 1999. On January 9, the bank trimmed rates by 50 basis points to 2.50 percent.

Before raising rates in August to combat inflation, the board had left interest rates at 5.00 percent for 11 straight meetings.

For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com

Copyright(c) 2009 RealTimeTraders.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Posted in Categories: Eurozone, Releases, Stocks, USA.

Subscribe by RSS Subscribe by Email