The South Korean stock market has experienced a decline in two consecutive sessions, slipping more than 15 points or 0.4 percent overall. The KOSPI, the main index, now teeters just below the 2,740-point plateau and is predicted to face further pressure on Tuesday.
Global forecasts suggest a weak outlook for Asian markets. However, potential losses from technology stocks may be offset by the support from oil companies. The European markets have shown mixed and flat performance while the U.S. markets were down, causing the Asian markets to follow a similar trend.
On Monday, the KOSPI ended slightly lower due to losses from the financial shares, technology stocks, and automobile manufacturers. On the day, the index fell by 10.99 points or 0.40 percent to finish at 2,737.57 after fluctuating between 2,731.70 and 2,763.63. The trading volume reached 479.9 million shares, valued at 9.78 trillion won, with 527 decliners and 336 gainers.
Among active players, KB Financial plummeted by 3.87 percent, while Hana Financial conceded 2.19 percent. Samsung Electronics receded by 0.89 percent, while Samsung SDI advanced 2.86 percent and LG Electronics shrunk by 0.50 percent. SK Hynix fell 0.24 percent, Naver lost 0.48 percent and LG Chem rose 1.65 percent. However, Lotte Chemical fell 0.66 percent, while S-Oil slumped 1.29 percent and SK Innovation added 0.48 percent.
The lead from Wall Street is underwhelming as all major averages opened low on Monday and consistently lagged during the day's trading. The Dow fell by 162.26 points or 0.41 percent ending at 39,313.64, while the NASDAQ and S&P 500 fell by 0.27 percent and 0.31 percent, respectively.
The market was significantly impacted by a drop in technology stocks, especially Intel's 4.7 percent drop, following China's new guidelines to phase out microprocessors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) from its government PCs and servers.
Despite the losses, the selling pressure was relatively low as traders appeared hesitant to make more significant changes ahead of the release of key economic data, including critical inflation numbers, in the coming days.
From an economic standpoint, the Commerce Department reported an unexpected decrease in new home sales in the U.S. in February.
On the other hand, oil prices increased on Monday due to concerns about supply disruptions following Ukraine's continued attacks on Russian refineries. The weakening dollar, as well as expectations of interest rate cuts by central banks, also contributed to the rising oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May ended higher by $1.32 or 1.64 percent at $81.95 a barrel.
