Stock Price Surged 14 Points to 834

Thanks to the aggressive purchase of the institutional investors such as investments and trust or securities, the composite stock exchange index was recovered to the 830 line for the first time in past 20 months. The Kosdaq index also showed a greatest hike in past 10 months by the purchase of foreign investors.

The composite stock exchange index closed at 834.21, which is 14.22 points higher than the index at the end of last week, after surging up to 847 once approaching the 850 line. The final index is the highest one since July 13th, 2000 (845.75). The number of ups (482) far exceeded the number of downs (306) and the total transaction amount was 4 trillion 740.2 billion won by 621.76 million stock transactions. By the rise of stock price, active transactions created a typical bull market yesterday.

The investment and trust and the securities recorded net purchase of 162.6 billion won and 111.6 billion won respectively. The major items of net purchase were Samsung Electronics (62.4 billion won), KEPCO (35.9 billion won), SK (23.4 billion won), POSCO (22.9 billion won), and Korea Telecom (16.9 billion won). Foreign investors also recorded 9.2 billion won of net purchase, returning from their sales rush for a while.

Foreign investors showed a net purchase of 82.6 billion won in Kosdaq, which is the largest net purchase since March 23rd, 2000 (96.5 billion won). Foreign investors are selling out their stocks whose prices have risen these days while purchasing yellow chips of the stock exchange market and the blue chips of Kosdaq.

Chan-Sun Hong hcs@donga.com