[THE INVESTOR] South Korean stocks rose to hit fresh yearly highs on Aug. 8 as foreigners and institutional investors increased their net buying.
The benchmark KOSPI gained 0.65 percent to close at 2031.12 points, the highest since November in 2015 when the market ended at 2030.68.
Foreign investors were net buyers of stocks worth 79.6 billion won (US$71.77 million).
Naver's LINE IPO in New York
, the country’s biggest portal site operator, was the most popular option for offshore investors on the day, buying a net 21.4 billion worth of stocks on the Seoul bourse.
Second and third in terms of net foreign buying were Seoul’s top cosmetics makers
LG Household & Health Care and
AmorePacific at 19.6 billion won and 16.9 billion won, respectively.
CJ CheilJedang was the fourth with its stocks worth 15.8 billion won being sold to foreign investors during the day.
Foreigners dumped shares of
Samsung Electronics worth 57.3 billion won, making it the biggest one-day selloff among KOSPI-listed stocks. Investors sold the stock to take advantage of a sharp rise which had set a new 52-week high in the recent consecutive sessions.
Other top losers included top steelmaker
POSCO, Samsung Electronics’ preferred shares, of which foreigners sold 9.6 billion won and 9.5 billion won worth, respectively. They also unloaded 6.1 billion won shares of
Hyundai Steel.
By Park Han-na (
hnpark@heraldcorp.com)
