Seoul stocks react positively to Roh's arrest
Seoul stocks react positively to Roh's arrest
HONG KONG (Reuter): Seoul stocks rebounded across the board yesterday as the market reacted to the arrest of former president Roh Tae-woo on bribery charges.
Elsewhere in Asia, shares ended mixed yesterday, with Tokyo gaining 1.18 percent and Hong Kong ending nearly 80 points lower after a day of wide swings.
In Seoul, brokers said investors bargain-hunted shares that have fallen sharply in the last four days but trading was light.
The composite stock index closed up 18.41 points, or 1.97 percent, at 952.36.
In Tokyo, stocks ended higher on index-linked buying on the back of gains in futures markets. Growing hopes that big banks will cut bad loans dramatically supported gains, after a report that Fuji Bank will post losses in 1995/96 to write off such loans, brokers said.
The 225-share Nikkei closed up 211.64 points or 1.18 percent at 18,151.16.
In Hong Kong, stocks repeated Thursday's pattern of swinging from smart early gains to close sharply lower in thin trading, players said.
The blue-chip Hang Seng Index slid 79.75 points to end at 9,287.90, after briefly breaching the 9,400 level in early trade on Wall Street's continued bull run.
In Singapore, shares closed lower in anemic trade with institutions mostly sidelined.
The 30-share Straits Times Industrials Index (STII) fell 11.88 points to end at its day's low of 2,077.41. Volume was 110.79 million shares, with losers leading gainers 188 to 86.
In Kuala Lumpur, share prices ended softer as continued selling pressured the benchmark Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (KLSE) composite index through the day.
The index ended down 5.13 at 888.91. Volume was an estimated 75.4 million shares.
In Bangkok, the Thai bourse staged a slight comeback after recently hitting a new 6-1/2-month low and closed 1.8 percent higher amid buying of blue-chip stocks in the banking and finance sectors, brokers said.
The SET index rose 21.56 points to 1,196.18. Gainers overwhelmed decliners 267 to 58 while 69 issues were unchanged.
In Manila, the index ended 27.33 points or 1.19 percent lower at 2,264.08, just above its year low of 2,262.94 posted March.
In Sydney, the All Ordinaries index finished 13.6 points higher at 2119.70.
In Taipei, the index ended down 73.20 points or 1.58 percent at an intraday low of 4,566.08.
The Financial Times-Stock Exchange index of 100 leading British shares had fallen 1.8 points to 3,609.0.
In Paris, the CAC-40 share index dropped 6.46 to 1,898.68.
The 30-share DAX index in Frankfurt was down 2.72 at 2,200.72.