South Korean shares set for weekly fall on Mideast uncertainty

Reuters10:45
South Korean shares set for weekly fall on Mideast uncertainty

KOSPI falls, foreigners net sellers

Korean won strengthens against dollar

South Korea benchmark bond yield rises

SEOUL, March 27 (Reuters) - Round-up of South Korean financial markets:

** South Korean shares fell more than 3% on Friday and were set to end the week lower on heightened uncertainty over the military conflict in the Middle East.

** The benchmark KOSPI .KS11 was down 168.42 points, or 3.08%, at 5,292.04, as of 0229 GMT.

** The index has fallen 8.3% so far this week, after rising 5.4% last week.

** U.S. President Donald Trump said he would extend a pause on attacks against Iran's energy plants into April and that talks with Iran were going "very well," but an Iranian official said a U.S. proposal for ending the war as "one-sided and unfair."

** South Korea began enforcing a ban on naphtha exports from midnight on Thursday as it moved to shore up domestic supplies amid disruptions caused by the conflict in the Middle East.

** Chipmaker Samsung Electronics 005930.KS fell 4% and peer SK Hynix 000660.KS lost 4.07%, after Google GOOGL.O earlier this week unveiled a new compression algorithm, TurboQuant, which it said allows AI systems to use much less memory without hurting performance.

** Among other index heavyweights, battery maker LG Energy Solution 373220.KS slid 0.98%, while Hyundai Motor 005380.KS and sister automaker Kia Corp 000270.KS were down 2.65% and 1.62%, respectively.

** Steelmaker POSCO Holdings 005490.KS shed 2.04%, while drugmaker Samsung BioLogics 207940.KS fell 0.19%.

** Of the total 925 traded issues, 178 shares advanced, while 724 declined.

** Foreigners were net sellers of shares worth 2.2 trillion won ($1.46 billion).

** The won was quoted at 1,504.8 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform KRW=KFTC, 0.21% higher than its previous close at 1,508.0.

** The most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yield KR3YT=RR rose by 2.0 basis points to 3.571%, while the benchmark 10-year yield KR10YT=RR rose by 2.3 basis points to 3.893%.

($1 = 1,505.2800 won)

(Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)

((jihoon.lee@thomsonreuters.com;))

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