South Korea’s stock markets on Tuesday remained under the influence of North Korea’s sixth nuclear test Sunday. The main bourse index Kospi shed 0.13 percent and closed at 2,326.62, while the secondary market index Kosdaq took a 0.33 percent loss. Both markets opened higher Tuesday, but swung back to negative territory with foreign sell-offs emerging from late morning trade. The Kospi opened 0....

Markets in South Korea took a downturn Monday in the wake of the most powerful nuclear bomb test by North Korea on Sunday, drawing a mixed forecast on the aftereffect from local analysts. The main bourse index Kospi closed at 2,329.65, down 1.19 percent, while the tech-heavy secondary Kosdaq tumbled 1.68 percent to 650.89. By Son Ji-hyoung ( consnow@heraldcorp.com )

Security tension is most likely to return to focus in South Korea’s stock markets this week following the North’s sixth nuclear test Sunday, further dampening investors’ sentiment. A 5.7 magnitude tremor was detected in northeastern North Korea on Sunday at around 12:29 p.m., which North Korea claimed to be a test of a hydrogen bomb that can be loaded into its intercontinental ballistic missile....

A gold-embellished, red-lacquered pailou, or Chinese arch, looms over a street on the shore of South Korea’s port city of Incheon. The blue-colored board attached to the 11-meter high structure reads Zhonghuajia, Chinese for ‘Chinese avenue,’ marking the entrance to Incheon Chinatown, the largest Chinatown in the nation. For over 130 years, Incheon Chinatown has been standing as the only offici...

Beats, melodies, or words flow into your ears uninterrupted, and no one can touch what you picture with the sounds. Earphones and headphones divide a solitude space among multitudes on a busy street, mass transit or in a room full of people. With the ability to escape unwanted noise, earphones have long become a natural necessity in modern everyday life. Portable devices like the Walkman began...

Hyundai Steel completed a seismic retrofit for a school free of charge Tuesday in an increasingly earthquake-prone zone in North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea. The Incheon-headquartered steelmaker, the second largest in the nation by sales, reached out to Naenam Elementary School in the historic city of Gyeongju to furnish the school facilities with quake-resistant steel bars. The monthlong r...

Stock markets in South Korea recouped earlier losses Tuesday, after being rattled yet again by another North Korea missile test in the morning, while local currency and short-term bonds remained weak. Korea’s primary stock market index Kospi closed at 2,364.74, down 0.23 percent from Monday. The index had tumbled by 1.58 percent at the lowest in late morning trade, but the daily loss began to gr...

This is the 40th in a series of articles analyzing major companies traded on the tech-heavy Kosdaq market. -- Ed Amotech’s unhindered rally over the past two weeks seemed to mark a successful consequence of the partmaker’s decadelong efforts to expand into the electric car part business. The company’s stocks listed on the second-tier Kosdaq market closed at 33,750 won ($29.96) on Friday, up 26....

With Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong sentenced to five years behind bars Friday for bribery, embezzlement and flight of capital, Samsung Electronics shares dropped over 1 percent. Samsung Electronics closed at 2,351,000 won ($2,080), down 1.05 percent compared to Thursday’s close. Samsung C&T, the de facto holding company of the group and one of the focal points of the corruption ...

Kakao Bank solidified its position as South Korea’s leading direct bank in its first month of operation, data showed Thursday, although concerns persist over customer service scams and loopholes in authentication. As of Wednesday, Kakao Bank, the second online-only bank to open in Korea following K bank, attracted some 2.9 million bank accounts, through which customers made deposits and savings ...

South Korea’s top financial regulators and sole market operator on Wednesday unveiled plans to tighten their control on short-selling in stock markets, a practice widely vilified here. Starting September, Korea will be able to put a brake on short-selling of a certain stock for a day, if short-selling of stocks that have fallen more than 5 percent take up 18 percent -- tighter by 2 percentage po...

South Korea’s top fiscal policymaker said in parliament on Tuesday that the government would keep the national debt under 700 trillion won ($616.7 billion) in 2017, amid concerns over rising government expenditure. In a meeting of the National Assembly’s Special Committee on Budget & Accounts, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said the volume of govern...

As Celltrion, the top-valued stock in market cap on the second-tier Kosdaq market, is set to discuss moving to the main bourse, recent analyses by market watchers have made the case for Kosdaq-listed powerhouses’ recent attempts to move into the top-tier market. The biologic drugmaker on Monday said in a regulatory filing it would hold a shareholders’ meeting on Sept. 29 at its headquarters in p...

In operation for nearly five months, South Korea’s first online-only bank K Bank has proved its capability to absorb borrowers holding mid-credit scores by bringing the delinquency rate of loans under control, data showed Monday. Over half of K bank’s 64,251 loans went to mid-credit rate borrowers as of Aug. 14, according to data from the Financial Supervisory Service. The 35,754 loans to mid-cr...

South Korea’s top financial supervisor vowed Monday to keep close tabs on non-mortgage loans extended to households, amid rising speculation of borrowers skirting tougher regulations on mortgages by using personal loans to buy homes -- an illegal practice here. Zhin Woong-seob, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, stressed in an undisclosed meeting the need for “thorough scrutiny” on t...