(RTTNews) - After opening lower and drifting further down into the red, the South Korean stock market has edged up a bit in late morning trades on Monday, regaining some lost ground on selective buying in a few blue chip stocks. The mood, however, remains quite cautious with the negative close on Wall Street Friday on the back of disappointing earnings reports hurting sentiment to a marked extent.

The benchmark KOSPI index, which fell to 1,614.8 in early trades, is currently down 4.4 points, or 0.26%, at 1,636.

Bank stocks are among the prominent losers. Korea Exchange Bank is down as much as 4.5%, while Woori Finance and Shinhan Financial are trading lower by 1.8% and 0.6% respectively. However, KB Financial is bucking the trend and is up 1% over its previous closing price.

In the tech space, Samsung Electronics is trading 1.6% down and LG Display LCD is down by about 0.7%, while LG Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor are trading higher by 2.7% and 0.8% respectively.

Among automobile stocks, Kia Motor and Hyundai Motor are up 1.9% and 1.6% respectively, Ssangyong Motor is up as much as 15%. In the shipping space, Samsung Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding are trading lower, while Samsung Heavy Industries and STX Pan Ocean are up with modest gains.

Oil stocks are trading mixed. Among steel stocks, Hyundai Steel is up 1.8%, while POSCO is trading lower by 1.1%. Airliners and telecom stocks are exhibiting weakness.

Among other markets in the Asia-Pacific region, Australia and Japan are trading notably lower. Indonesia and Singapore are also trading weak. Shanghai, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Taiwan are trading in positive territory. Stock markets in the region had closed on a mixed note on Friday.

On Wall Street, stocks declined by notable margins on Friday, with a worse than expected report on consumer sentiment and disheartening earnings data contributing to the weakness. The major averages all closed on the downside, offsetting some of the strong gains posted during the middle of the week.

The Dow closed lower by 67 points, or 0.7%, at 9,995.91, the Nasdaq drifted down by 16.5 points, or 0.8%, to 2,156.8 and the S&P 500 finished with a loss of 8.9 points, or 0.8%, at 1087.7.

Major European markets all closed notably lower on Friday. The French CAC 40 index and the German DAX index both fell 1.5%, while the U.K.’s FTSE 100 index closed 0.6% down.

Crude oil continued to rise on Friday, extending a yearly high, as some encouraging industrial production data gave traders higher hopes for energy demand. Light sweet crude for November climbed to US$78.53 a barrel, up 95 cents on the session.

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Posted in Categories: Australia, Eurozone, Japan, New Zealand, Releases, Stocks, USA.

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