South Korean stocks opened almost unchanged Tuesday on overnight losses in Wall Street.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) inched up 2.18 points, or 0.11 percent, to 1,936.27 in the first 15 minutes of trading.

On Tuesday (local time), US stocks gave up earlier gains to end lower on tech losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.13 percent, the S&P 500 was down 0.52 percent, and the Nasdaq composite index decreased 1.4 percent.

Most large-cap shares on the Seoul bourse traded in negative terrain.

Top cap Samsung Electronics lost 0.7 percent, and major pharmaceutical firm Samsung BioLogics shed 0.51 percent,

In contrast, major chipmaker SK hynix added 0.24 percent, and No. 1 chemical firm LG Chem was up 3.25 percent.

The local currency was trading at 1,219.3 won against the US dollar, up 5.9 won from the previous session's close. (Yonhap)