South Korea Shares May Extend Winning Streak

(RTTNews) - The South Korea stock market has moved higher in back-to-back sessions, advancing almost 230 points or 3.1 percent along the way. The KOSPI now sits just above the 7,475-point plateau and it may add to its winnings again on Monday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is cautiously optimistic, spurred by strong tech support and easing crude oil prices. The European markets were mixed and the U.S. bourses were slightly higher and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The KOSPI finished sharply higher on Friday following gains from the financial shares, technology stocks and automobile producers.

For the day, the index rallied 184.03 points or 2.52 percent to finish at 7,475.94 after trading between 7,429.51 and 7,704.93. Volume was 449.53 million shares worth 31.16 trillion won. There were 799 gainers and 92 decliners.

The lead from Wall Street suggests mild upside as the major averages shook off a slow start on Friday and trended slightly higher for the rest of the day, ending near session highs.

The Dow added 149.60 points or 0.29 percent to finish at 52,637.01. while the NASDAQ gained 74.72 points or 0.29 percent to close at 26,281.61 and the S&P 500 rose 31.75 points or 0.42 percent to end at 7,575.39.

For the week, the tech-heavy NASDAQ surged 1.7 percent, the S&P 500 jumped 1.2 percent and the Dow advanced 0.5 percent.

The upward move on Wall Street partly reflected strength among some big-name tech stocks, including Meta Platforms (META), Nvidia (NVDA) and the U.S.-listed debut shares of SK Hynix.

However, traders largely seemed reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the unofficial start of earnings season this week. Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), UnitedHealth (UNH) and Netflix (NFLX) are among the companies due to report their quarterly results.

Crude oil prices slumped on Friday, thanks to efforts by third-party mediators to bring the U.S. and Iran back to the negotiating table. West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery was down $0.75 or 1.04 percent at $71.33 per barrel.