32% Ownership

Foreign ownership in Korean stocks exceeded 500 trillion won (US$439.37 billion) for the first time in January.
Foreign ownership in Korean stocks exceeded 500 trillion won (US$439.37 billion) for the first time in January.

 

Foreign ownership in Korean stocks exceeded 500 trillion won (US$439.37 billion) for the first time last month. It also accounted for a third of the total market capitalization.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service on February 6, overseas investors owned a total of 501.96 trillion won (US$441.09 billion) in shares of South Korea’s listed companies as of the end of January this year, up 24.3 percent, or 98 trillion won (US$86.12 billion) from a year earlier. Their holding was up from 28.1 percent of market cap as of end-January in 2016 to 32 percent in January this year.

Investments by foreigners have rapidly grown due to the fact that foreign investors have kept up their buying spree in the local bourse since the latter half of last year, boosted by the increase in sales of Samsung Electronics. In particular, they net bought 1.74 trillion won (US$1.53 billion) in local shares in December last year and 1.79 trillion won (US$1.57 billion) in January this year.

By country, investors from the United States net bought 1.37 trillion won (US$1.2 billion) in stocks last month and were followed by investors from the Cayman Islands with 315 billion won (US$276.8 million) and Ireland with 191 billion won (US$167.84 million). On the other hand, investors from the U.K. net sold 338 billion won (US$297.01 million) in stocks.

Foreigners were also net investors of bonds last month, with net buying of 1.67 trillion (US$1.46 billion), for the first time since July. The figure is the highest on a monthly basis since May 2015. Asian investors net invested 1.02 trillion won (US$895.69 million) in bonds, followed by European investors with 412.4 billion won (US$362.39 million).

 

Copyright © BusinessKorea. Prohibited from unauthorized reproduction and redistribution