Seoul shares open sharply lower on U.S. losses

SEOUL, Dec. 2 (Yonhap) -- South Korean stocks opened sharply lower Tuesday as overnight plunges of U.S. stocks weighed down on blue chips here, analysts said.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) plummeted 46.55 points,
or 4.4 percent, to 1,012.07 in the first 15 minutes of trading.
Wall Street tumbled on Monday as the National Bureau of Economic Research, an
arbiter of U.S. business cycles, declared that the U.S. entered recession in
December 2007 while the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the economy
remained under considerable strain. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 7.7
percent while the tech-dominated Nasdaq composite index rose 8.95 percent.
The local currency was trading at 1,469 won to the U.S. dollar as of 9:15 a.m.,
down 29 won from Monday's close.