Seoul shares end firm; energy, utility issues help

* KOSPI rises 0.21 pct

* Caution before BOK rate decision on May 12

* KEPCO up on stronger won, tariff hike hopes

(Updates to close)

By Jungyoun Park

SEOUL, May 11 (Reuters) - Seoul shares ended slightly firmer
on Monday with gains by energy and utility issues such as KEPCO
(015760.KS) and GS Holdings (078930.KS) outweighing losses by key
technology and auto exporters.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index .KS11 (KOSPI) ended
up 0.21 percent at 1,415.16 points.

"A solid ending on Wall Street and better-than-expected job
data helped sentiment, but gains were limited with institutions
offloading as fund redemptions rise and pension funds cash out of
some of their stock holdings," said Kim Seong-bong, a market
analyst at Samsung Securities.

News that U.S. employers cut a smaller-than-expected 539,000
jobs in April lent the market support. [ID:nN07416806]

Institutions were net sellers for a fifth straight session,
offloading a net 460 billion won worth of stocks. Investment
management firms sold a net 400 net billion won and pension funds
were sellers of a net 25 billion won.

"A stronger won helped utilities issues as they're big
importers of crude oil and natural gas and tend to have heavy
foreign currency debt loads, but also pressures exporters," Kim
added.

Analysts also said caution ahead of the Bank of Korea's
interest rate meeting on Tuesday weighed on sentiment.

Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) ended up 3.78 percent,
further helped by a report the government was considering raising
electricity tariffs to mitigate the state-run utility's chronic
losses.

"If a rate hike does happen, it would directly contribute to
KEPCO's earnings," said Lee Jae-won, an analyst at SK Securities.

Meanwhile GS Holdings (078930.KS) finished up 4.43 percent
after the holding firm of GS Caltex, South Korea's No.2 crude
refiner, said its first quarter net profit jumped 1,420 percent
year-on-year.

"GS Caltex's earnings came out very strong on the back of a
rebound in crude refining margins and improvements in margins
from petrochemical products," Woori Investment & Securities said
on its report on Monday.

But key technology and auto exporters declined on the back of
continuing strengthening of the won KRW=.

Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), the world's No.1 memory chip
maker, which accounts for more than 10 percent of the KOSPI's
market cap, fell 1.05 percent.

Samsung Electronics said Monday it expected shipments of
computer memory chips to grow by 10 to 15 percent this year, much
lower than a previous estimate made late last year.
[ID:nSEO43761]

Hyundai Motor (005380.KS), the country's No.2 automaker,
declined 0.92 percent.

Elsewhere shares in online game developer NCSoft (036570.KS)
fell 0.32 percent despite posting on Monday 315 percent
year-on-year growth in first quarter net profit to 33.5 billion
won ($27.12 million).

Lee Chang-young, an analyst at Tong Yang Securities, said
investors were concerned by market talk that industry rival
Blizzard Entertainment was poised to introduce a trial service
for a sequel to its popular StarCraft game.