Dramatically Oversold KOSPI Still Called Lower On Thursday

(RTTNews) - The South Korea stock market has finished lower in six straight sessions, plummeting more than 1,000 points or 15 percent along the way. The KOSPI now sits just above the 6,000-point plateau and it's got another weak lead for Thursday's trade.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is weak on rising crude oil prices and concerns over the outlook for interest rates. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets are likely to follow the latter lead.

The KOSPI finished modestly lower on Wednesday as losses from the technology, semiconductor, retail and shipbuilding sectors were mitigated by support from the energy and communications companies.

For the day, the index shed 26.54 points or 0.44 percent to finish 6,008.81. Volume was 350.8 million shares worth 19.9 trillion won. There were 502 gainers and 369 decliners.

The lead from Wall Street is negative as the major averages opened mixed but quickly tailed off and settled well under the unchanged line.

The Dow shed 48.62 points or 0.09 percent to finish at 51,621.48, while the NASDAQ tumbled 511.51 points or 1.88 percent to close at 26,692.87 and the S&P 500 slumped 86.51 points or 1.11 percent to end at 7,718.94.

The weakness on Wall Street came after the Labor Department released its closely watched report on consumer price inflation for September, which showed a bigger than expected increase in core consumer prices.

The bigger than expected increase in core prices led to renewed concerns about the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve's next monetary policy meeting later this month.

A sharp increase by the price of crude oil also weighed on stocks after the International Energy Agency warned that the recent escalation in attacks on regional energy infrastructure and tanker traffic in the Middle East is threatening to derail a recovery in oil supply. West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery climbed $1.20 or 1.3 percent to $95.34 a barrel.