An electronic board showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index at a dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul on Thursday. (Yonhap)
South Korean stocks opened higher Thursday amid lingering concerns over more interest rate hikes.
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index had gained 18.54 points, or 0.77 percent, to 2,436.22 in the first 15 minutes of trading.
The Bank of Korea is scheduled to hold its rate-setting meeting later in the day. It raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point in January to 3.5 percent to tackle persistently high inflation. It was its seventh straight rate hike since April last year.
Overnight, Wall Street ended mixed after a summary of the US Federal Reserve's recent meeting reaffirmed the market fears that the US central bank could keep raising borrowing rates to bring down inflation.
The minutes showed inflation was "well above" the central bank's 2 percent target.
And while the pace of price increase has slowed in recent months, it said "substantially more evidence of progress across a broader range of prices would be required to be confident that inflation was on a sustained downward path."
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.26 percent, and the S&P 500 slid 0.16 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.13 percent.
In Seoul, most big-cap stocks opened higher.
Market bellwether Samsung Electronics added 1.15 percent, and chip giant SK hynix gained 1.8 percent.
Leading battery maker LG Energy Solution rose 0.79 percent, and LG Chem gained 0.75 percent.
Top automaker Hyundai Motor went up 0.98 percent, and its affiliate Kia gained 0.67 percent.
Samsung Biologics increased 0.25 percent, and Celltrion climbed 0.27 percent.
The local currency was trading at 1,303.7 won against the US dollar as of 9:15 a.m., up 1.2 won from the previous session's close. (Yonhap)
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