South Korea Shares May Extend Thursday's Losses

(RTTNews) - The South Korea stock market on Thursday ended the two-day winning streak in which it had surged almost 550 points or 10 percent. The KOSPI now sits just beneath the 5,940-point plateau and it may take further damage on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is soft with renewed selling pressure likely among the technology stocks. The European markets were up and the U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses figure to follow the latter lead.

The KOSPI finished sharply lower on Thursday following losses among the electronic, industrial and energy sectors.

For the day, the index tumbled 74.78 points or 1.24 percent to finish at 5,937.66 after peaking at 6,100.11. Volume was 279.7 million shares worth 24.9 trillion won. There were 593 gainers and 270 decliners.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened under water on Thursday and stayed that way throughout the trading day, although they came off session lows.

The Dow shed 132.54 points or 0.25 percent to finish at 52,342.56, while the NASDAQ tumbled 365.13 points or 1.38 percent to end at 26,184.72 and the S&P 500 sank 23.59 points or 0.30 percent to close at 7,720.39.

The sharp pullback by the NASDAQ came as technology stocks came under pressure as concerns about artificial trade once again resurfaced on Wall Street.

Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) led the way lower, plunging by 13.2 percent after reporting weaker-than-expected third quarter revenue as well as negative free cash flow.

On the U.S. economic front, a closely watched report from the Commerce Department showed consumer prices in the U.S. increased in line with estimates in the month of September.

Crude oil prices moved lower on Thursday on expectations of a possible de-escalation in the U.S.-Iran conflict as Qatar presses Iran to negotiate with the U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery was down $0.79 or 0.77 percent at $101.99 per barrel.

Closer to home, South Korea will provide September data for industrial production and retail sales later this morning. In August, production was down 4.8 percent on month and 2.2 percent on year, while sales slumped 1.8 percent on month.