South Korea’s benchmark Kospi hovered around the 3,200-point threshold Monday amid hopes of a global economic recovery, raising hopes of a bounce back to over 3,200 points at the closing bell for the first time in nearly three months. Local market watchers also presented a positive outlook on the index’s upward moves, with some suggesting that it might touch 3,300 points soon.

The Kospi closed at 3,198.84, having inched up 0.22 points, or 0.01 percent, from the previous session’s close. It started off above 3,200 points and hit 3,214.45 in the morning trade, surpassing the market’s closing high of 3,208.99 points Jan. 25. But the index erased most of its earlier gains toward the session’s end.

Small domestic investors purchased a net 389.7 billion won ($348.88 million). Institutional investors, who purchased the local shares until the early afternoon trade, turned to net sellers and dumped 115.7 billion won. Foreign investors also became net sellers and offloaded 302.5 billion won worth of shares.

While the key stock index extended its winning streak into a sixth consecutive session, it is likely to maintain the upward trend throughout the week amid expectations of solid first-quarter corporate earnings, according to local brokerages.

Major brokerage houses NH Investment & Securities and Korea Investment & Securities suggested their upper-end target bands for Kospi this week would be 3,250 points and 3,300 points, respectively.

They forecast that rosy speculation on exports and robust earnings by major companies in the US are likely to boost foreign investors’ net purchases of local equities. Stable US Treasury yields will be another positive factor for the market, they predicted.

The local pension funds’ buying spree also gave hope to investors. The nation’s largest institutional investor, the National Pension Service, turned net buyer for two days in a row, scooping up about 34.7 billion won worth of local equities from both the Kospi and the tech-heavy Kosdaq markets.

Previously, the NPS unloaded its local shares for nearly one month until Friday to balance out its investments in domestic stocks in its asset portfolio. But it adjusted the rules to raise the strategic asset distribution limit for domestic stock holdings by 1 percentage point earlier this month.

Backed by foreign and institutional investors’ combined net purchases, worth around 149.9 billion won, the Kosdaq rose 7.84 points or 0.77 percent to 1,029.46 points at the closing. On the contrary, retail investors dumped 110.6 billion won worth of shares.

The Korean won weakened 0.09 percent against the US greenback in the late afternoon trade. The local currency traded at 1,117.3 won per dollar, from 1,116.3 won per dollar at the previous session’s close.

By Jie Ye-eun (yeeun@heraldcorp.com)