Seoul stocks flat before Lunar New Year holiday

(Updates to mid-morning)

SEOUL, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Seoul stocks were flat on Tuesday
with trade thinned ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, as a
recent rally in shipbuilders and tech titles lost steam after
Wall Street fell on renewed worries about the U.S. economy.

Markets appear to be on firmer ground this month with
investors drawn to valuations after the index plunged 14.4
percent in January, the worst monthly performance since October
2000, but persisting concerns about a possible U.S. recession
will make a significant rebound difficult, analysts say.

"I'm hardly seeing any active trade today, because of the long
holiday starting tomorrow," said Lee Sun-yeop, an analyst at
Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.

"Markets are taking a breather after a recent strong rebound,
but it looks like investment seems to have stabilised
significantly. Investors are betting that there might be no big
rupture in global markets in the rest of the week because there
are few scheduled major U.S. economic data during the period."

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index was up 0.02
percent at 1,690.40 points as of 0115 GMT, after rising 3.4
percent to 1,690.13 points on Monday, its biggest daily
percentage gain since Nov. 26.

The market will be closed for the rest of the week for the
Lunar New Year holiday.

Shipbuilders paused in the strong recovery seen over the past
several sessions, with Samsung Heavy Industries (010140.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)
falling 1.36 percent to 29,100 won and Daewoo Shipbuilding &
Marine Engineering (042660.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) down 0.29 percent to 34,900 won.

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world's top
memory chip maker, declined 1.31 percent to 604,000 won.

Kookmin Bank (060000.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), South Korea's top lender, fell 0.32
percent to 61,700 won after it reported fourth-quarter earnings
late on Monday that missed market expectations due to higher
one-off provisions. [ID:nSEO174645]

(Reporting by Kim Soyoung; Editing by Keiron Henderson)