SEOUL, Sept 3: Seoul shares edged down on Monday morning, with Samsung Electronics dragging on the market after Apple Inc targeted more products in a patent lawsuit.
But sentiment drew some support from comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who expressed ‘grave concern’ for the stagnating US job market and said the Fed was prepared to take further steps to strengthen the economy if necessary.
The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) was down 0.3 percent at 1,899.32 points as of 0150 GMT on Monday, giving up early gains.
‘After going through two weeks of adjustment, the KOSPI is expected to rise (in the long term) but it is likely to post some losses before the European Central Bank policy meeting on Sept. 6,’ said Cho Sung-min, a strategist at KTB Securities in Seoul in a report on Monday.
Foreign investors and retail investors were net buyers of 24.4 billion won ($21.50 million) and 149.1 billion won worth of South Korean stocks respectively, while institutions offloaded a net 187.8 billion won worth.
Samsung Electronics was down 1.6 percent after Apple asked a U.S. Federal court on Saturday to find that four additional Samsung products, including the Galaxy S III, infringe Apple’s patents.
Apple’s request came after it was handed a massive victory by a US jury late last month, which found the South Korean company had copied features from Apple products.
Other Samsung group shares also fell, with Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung SDI and
Samsung Life all declining more than 1 percent.
Decliners outnumbered gainers 407 to 359 on the main board, while the KOSPI 200 benchmark of core stocks was down 0.5 percent. The junior KOSDAQ rose 0.7 percent. ($1 = 1134.6250 Korean won)
(agencies)
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