Mild Upside Seen For South Korea Shares

(RTTNews) - The South Korea stock market on Monday snapped the two-day slide in which it had fallen almost 25 points or 1 percent. The KOSPI now rests just above the 2,510-point plateau and it may inch higher again on Tuesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests little movement ahead of key inflation data later this week. The European and U.S. markets finished mixed and mostly flat and the Asian markets are expected to open in similar fashion.

The KOSPI finished modestly higher on Monday as gains from the financials, technology stocks and automobile companies were capped by weakness from the chemical shares.

For the day, the index added 12.27 points or 0.49 percent to finish at 2,513.21 after trading between 2,511.13 and 2,525.84. Volume was 645.61 million shares worth 9.06 trillion won. There were 571 gainers and 301 decliners.

Among the actives, Shinhan Financial spiked 2.00 percent, while KB Financial collected 1.13 percent, Hana Financial jumped 1.68 percent, Samsung Electronics climbed 1.23 percent, LG Electronics soared 2.84 percent, Naver skyrocketed 5.56 percent, LG Chem lost 0.68 percent, Lotte Chemical shed 0.47 percent, S-Oil improved 1.24 percent, SK Innovation soared 3.35 percent, POSCO tanked 3.03 percent, SK Telecom advanced 0.94 percent, KEPCO was up 0.05 percent, Hyundai Mobis rallied 1.61 percent, Hyundai Motor accelerated 1.66 percent, Kia Motors strengthened 1.40 percent and SK Hynix and Samsung SDI were unchanged.

The lead from Wall Street offers little guidance as the major averages opened flat on Monday and spent much of the day in negative territory before finishing mixed and little changed.

The Dow shed 55.69 points or 0.17 percent to finish at 33,618.69, while the NASDAQ added 21.50 points or 0.18 percent to close at 12,256.92 and the S&P 500 perked 1.87 points or 0.05 percent to end at 4,138.12.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came as traders seemed reluctant to make significant moves ahead to the release of key inflation data later in the week.

The reports on consumer and producer price inflation, which are due to be released on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, could have a significant impact on the outlook for interest rates.

In U.S. economic news, the Commerce Department released a report showing U.S. wholesale inventories were unexpectedly unchanged in March versus expectations for a slight increase.

Crude oil prices climbed higher on Monday amid optimism about the outlook for energy demand thanks to last week's fairly encouraging non-farm payrolls data. West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for June ended higher by $1.82 or 2.6 percent at $73.16 a barrel.