Seoul shares tad lower in late Thursday morning trading

SEOUL, Aug. 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korean shares traded slightly lower late Thursday morning as foreign buyers offloaded big cap stocks.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) lost 2.06 points, or 0.09 percent, to 2,299.39 as of 11:20 a.m.

Most large-cap shares traded mixed.

Top cap Samsung Electronics lost 0.11 percent; SK hynix, a leading memory chipmaker, moved down 2.01 percent; and bio firm Celltrion was down 1.99 percent.

Samsung BioLogics, a biopharmaceutical affiliate of Samsung Group, meanwhile, gained 2.53 percent, and top portal operator Naver added 2 percent

The local currency was trading at 1,117.7 won against the U.S. dollar as of 11:20 a.m., up 2.2 won from Wednesday's close.

khj@yna.co.kr
(END)