Breaking: South Koreas Kospi hits fresh record high for third straight day on optimism over trade talks

Breaking: South Korea's Kospi hits fresh record high for third straight day on optimism over trade talks


Hongdae street in Seoul city, South Korea

Twenty47studio | Moment | Getty Images

South Korea’s Kospi hit a record high for the third straight day Friday, as trade talks continued with the U.S., bucking wider losses in Asia.

The Kospi touched an intraday high of 3,794.87 before giving up its gains to trade around the flatline. The index closed marginally up, at 3,748.89.

Meanwhile, the small-cap Kosdaq fell 0.68% to end at 859.54.

Other Asia-Pacific markets traded weaker, tracking losses on Wall Street as fears over the banking sector and trade tensions intensified.

Shares of regional banks and investment bankJefferiestumbled Thursday stateside as fears mounted around some bad loans lurking in the U.S.

Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. fell 2.36% Friday, ending at 1,450 New Taiwan dollars a share ($47.28). The chip heavyweight posted a third-quarter earnings beat after Taiwan’s market closed Thursday.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 2.48% to 25,247.1, leading losses in Asia and mainly dragged by educational stocks. The fall also marks the largest drop in the HSI since April.

Notably, Chinese automaker BYD‘s stocks fell more than 4% after the carmaker filed a plan with China’s State Administration for Market Regulation for its largest recall of around 115,000 vehicles due to design defects and battery-related issues.

The CSI 300 on the mainland declined 2.26% to end at 4,514.23, marking the steepest drop since April.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 1.44% and closed at 47,582.15, while the broad-based Topix fell 1.03% and ended at 3,170.44.

Australia’sS&P/ASX 200 was down 0.81% to finish at 8,995.3, snapping a three-day winning streak.

Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports posted a sharp rebound in September, jumping 6.9% from a year earlier, defying expectations of a 2.1% drop and reversing an 11.3% fall in August.

U.S. stock futures were slightly lower on Thursday night stateside after the previous session saw a sell-off fueled by concerns about regional banks’ loan practices.

Overnight in the U.S., theDow Jones Industrial Averagelost 301.07 points, or nearly 0.7%, to close at 45,952.24. Earlier in the day, the 30-stock index had gained 170 points.

TheS&P 500finished 0.6% lower at 6,629.07, giving up a 0.6% gain at the highs of the session. TheNasdaq Compositefell 0.5% to settle at 22,562.54.

— CNBC’s Liz Napolitano, Pia Singh and Alex Harring contributed to this report.

Source : cnbc