After failing to show a significantly improved performance over the past five months, Seoul stocks were expected to continue their climb, at least for the next week, on foreign buying.

Analysts, however, cautioned that some of the gains may be dwarfed by profit-taking.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index finished at 2,013.44 points on Friday, up 2.9 percent from a week earlier.

The main index, buoyed by foreign buying, continued to rise throughout the week to reach its highest level of the year on Friday.

Analysts said data from China and the U.S., coupled with political events such as the presidential election in Ukraine, may set the overall tone for the local stock market, while foreigners’ buying spree would likely continue.

“A set of economic figures from the U.S. may show that the world’s largest economy is on a recovery path, though it is unlikely for the Chinese economy to suffer an additional slowdown, which will boost foreign buying,” said Lee Jung-min, an analyst at KDB-Daewoo Securities.

The analyst said foreigners may target shares that are large-cap, sensitive to economic cycles or domestic-focused.

Foreigners scooped up local shares this week with net purchases surpassing 1 trillion won ($976 million). But institutional investors offloaded some net 200 billion won, and retail investors clung on to a net selling position of about 1 trillion won.

Samsung Electronics, the top market cap on the local bourse, and its affiliates such as Samsung C&T and Samsung Life Insurance led the overall market gain on hopes that the hospitalization of Lee Kun-hee, chairman of Samsung Electronics, would accelerate the group-wide restructuring and corporate succession to his heirs.

Tech and steelmakers were among the biggest gainers this week, gaining 3.9 percent and 3 percent, respectively. In contrast, banking lost 0.5 percent.

By Bae Hyun-jung and news reports
(tellme@heraldcorp.com)