South Korean shares set for weekly fall on Mideast uncertainty

SEOUL: 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 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. US 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 US 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 fell 4% and peer SK Hynix lost 4.07%, after Google 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 slid 0.98%, while Hyundai Motor and sister automaker Kia Corp were down 2.65% and 1.62%, respectively. Steelmaker POSCO Holdings shed 2.04%, while drugmaker Samsung BioLogics 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, 0.21% higher than its previous close at 1,508.0. The most liquid three-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 2.0 basis points to 3.571%, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 2.3 basis points to 3.893%. ‑Reuters

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