<br /> Korea's benchmark KOSPI index hit an all-time intra-day record on Monday, surpassing the two-thousand-six-hundred mark for the first time in history.<br /> The KOSPI started off at two-thousand-five-hundred-88-point-87, before climbing to two-thousand-six-hundred-and-five as of 11:45 a.m., backed by strong gains on Wall Street last week.<br />Market heavyweight Samsung Electronics and chipmaker SK Hynix gained more than one percent each during the first hour of trading.<br />The tech-heavy KOSDAQ is also rising steadily towards the nine-hundred-twenty mark. <br />The local currency began trading at one-thousand-64 won against the U.S. dollar, up zero-point-one won from the previous session's close. <br />
