South Korea Market: Support Seen At 1,900 Points

(RTTNews) - Ahead of the two-day New Year holiday break, the South Korea stock market had finished lower in back-to-back sessions - giving away more than 30 points or 1.5 percent in that span. The KOSPI settled just above the 1,915-point plateau, and now the market may tick slightly lower on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is slightly soft, with a heavy dose of volatility in what is expected to be light trade following the New Year's holiday. Weak economic data from the United States adds to the negative sentiment. The European markets were mixed on Wednesday and the U.S. bourses were down, and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The KOSPI finished modestly lower on Tuesday, nudged into the red by weakness from the technology stocks and industrial shares.

For the day, the index dipped 12.27 points or 0.64 percent to finish at 1,915.59 after trading between 1,910.78 and 1,937.55. Volume was 219.1 million shares worth 4.48 trillion won. There were 457 decliners and 337 gainers.

Among the actives, Samsung Electronics shed 0.15 percent, while Samsung SDS lost 0.51 percent, POSCO dropped 1.25 percent, Hyundai Motor fell 1.46 percent, Kia Motors tumbled 1.32 percent and SK Hynix retreated 0.62 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as stocks turned lower on Wednesday. While the pullback was exaggerated by light volume, the major averages showed a steep drop after opening higher.

The Dow tumbled 160.00 points or 0.9 percent to 17,823.07, while the NASDAQ slid 41.39 points or 0.9 percent to 4,736.05 and the S&P 500 slumped 21.45 points or 1 percent to 2,058.90. For the year, the Dow surged 7.5 percent, while the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 soared 13.4 percent and 11.4 percent, respectively.

The pullback by stocks may partly have reflected profit taking on the last trading day of 2014 following the strength seen for much of the year.

In economic news, the Labor Department noted a bigger than expected rebound in initial jobless claims in the week ended December 27. MNI Indicators also said its Chicago business barometer fell to a five-month low in December.

On the other hand, the National Association of Realtors reported a bigger than expected rebound in pending home sales in November.

Later this morning, South Korea will see December results for the manufacturing PMI from Markit Economics; in November, the index had a score of 49.0 - below the boom-or-bust level of 50 that separates expansion from contraction.