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Election results

boost Seoul stocks

SEOUL: Seoul stocks celebrated a better-than-expected election showing by the ruling party with many individual investors pouring in across the board by orders, brokers said on Friday.

The composite stocks index shot up by 2.37 percent, or 20.58 points, to close provisionally at 889.75. Gainers swamped losers by 757 to 73, with 211 stocks going limit up.

Official figures showed President Kim Young-sam's New Korea Party took 139 seats in the 299-National Assembly in Thursday's parliamentary elections. The party was widely expected to secure 120 to 130 seats in the elections.

"The ruling camp was victorious in the elections, easing investors' worries. This helped stabilise the sentiment of individual investors," said Park Key-pyong of Hanyang Securities.

He said individuals had sold a net of one trillion won worth of stocks in April alone due to uncertainty over the elections.

After the polls, they rushed to favourite "trokia" shares, which are financials, construction companies and trading houses. The construction sub-index added 3.47 percent to 449.24 and the financial sub-index rose 3.76 percent to 874.39.

"It's too early to say the market will ride a bull run soon. But it will show gradual rises," Park predicted.

But Lee Yon-suk of Citicorp International said: "The market today was politically-driven and the rise is temporary. The index won't show any big changes."

Brokers said anticipated selling from institutional investors, under pressure to be net buyers, could threaten the market. "If the index hits the 900 level, I expect institutions will try to re-position their investment portfolios," said Park Si-jin of First Securities. The index was revised to 889.82.-Reuter