Seoul stocks up late Mon. morning on machinery shares

SEOUL, South Korean stocks continued to trade higher late Monday morning on the back of the machinery sector. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index had gained 14.94 points, or 0.56 percent, to 2,702.54 as of 11:20 a.m. Machinery firms led the overall growth, with Hanmi Semiconductor, which supplies equipment to global chip giants including SK hynix and Micron Technology, jumping 8.33 percent. Doosan Enerbility also shot up 11.17 percent on reports that it has participated in a U.S. small modular reactor project. Top tech giant Samsung Electronics lost 1.32 percent, while No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix gained 4.48 percent. LG Electronics moved up 2.98 percent. The local currency was trading at 1,365.2 won against the U.S. dollar, up 4.3 won from the previous session's close. Source: Yonhap News Agency