Bank of Korea buys net $192m in market-smoothing operations in Q3

The Bank of Korea (BOK) announced on Tuesday that it purchased a net US$192 million in the third quarter of 2024 to help stabilise the foreign exchange market, following the weakening of the Korean won against the US dollar.

This marks a significant shift from the previous quarter when the central bank sold US$5.79 billion — the largest such sale since the second quarter of 2023. In the first quarter of this year, the BOK had also sold a net US$1.81 billion.

The third-quarter purchase follows a reversal from the fourth quarter of 2023, when the central bank bought a net US$1.98 billion, ending a nine-quarter streak of dollar sales that began in the third quarter of 2021.

By the end of September, the Korean won had weakened to 1,392.50 to the dollar, compared to 1,303.40 three months earlier.

Attribution: Yonhap