Seoul, Feb 28 South Korean stocks traded sharply lower on Friday as investor sentiment was dampened by looming tariff impositions by the United States and a slump in artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia.
The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) had lost 72.29 points, or 2.76 percent, to 2,549.46 as of 11:20 a.m.
Overnight, Wall Street fell after Nvidia's better-than-expected quarterly earnings failed to revive the AI boom and U.S. President Donald Trump announced plans to impose tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada, reports Yonhap news agency.
In Seoul, most shares lost ground.
Chip giant SK hynix, a key supplier to Nvidia, sank 4.62 percent, and Hanmi Semiconductor, a chip equipment manufacturer, tumbled 7.6 per cent.
Top online portal operator Naver slid 4.57 percent, and food giant CJ Cheiljedang dipped 3.44 per cent.
Leading defence firm Hanwha Aerospace slumped 6.47 per cent, and game maker NCSOFT retreated 3.1 per cent.
The local currency was trading at 1,459.95 won against the U.S. dollar at 11:20 a.m., down 17.35 won from the previous session.
Meanwhile, banks' loan rate fell in January, data showed Friday, as the central bank has been on a monetary easing cycle.
The average lending rate of banks applied to new loans last month came to 4.53 per cent, down 0.11 percentage point from a month earlier, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).
In detail, banks' lending rate for corporate loans shed 0.12 percentage point to 4.5 per cent in January, while their lending rate on household loans also inched down 0.07 percentage point to 4.65 per cent on average.
The rate that banks pay for deposits also fell 0.14 percentage point to 3.07 per cent.
The spread on banks' lending and deposit rates, accordingly, widened to 1.46 percentage points last month from 1.43 percentage points in December, according to the data.
In December, the BOK held the benchmark interest rate steady to ensure financial stability and to assess the impact of two consecutive rate cuts during the October and November rate-setting meetings.
The central bank slashed its policy rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.75 percent at its latest rate-setting meeting on Tuesday, stressing the need to shore up economic growth affected by domestic political turmoil and the sweeping tariffs of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration.
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