Foreign Investors Sell Stocks, Buy Bonds

Foreign investors sold stocks and purchased bonds in the Korean capital market in May.

The Financial Supervisory Service announced on June 10 that foreigners net-sold shares worth a total of 2,917 billion won in South Korea last month while the value of the bonds they own reached a new high.

The net selling volume is the largest since October last year, when the volume amounted to 4,638 billion won. American investors net-sold shares worth 914 billion won, followed by Ireland (564 billion won), Luxembourg (357 billion won), Malta (353 billion won), and the Cayman Islands (302 billion won). Singapore, Britain and the United Arab Emirates net-bought 275 billion won, 113 billion won and 109 billion won of shares, respectively.

As of the end of last month, foreign investors’ listed shareholdings totaled 532.4 trillion won, equivalent to 32.3 percent of the total value of the South Korean stock market. The United States accounted for 42.7 percent of the shareholdings, followed by Britain (8.9 percent), Luxembourg (6.4 percent) and Singapore (5.3 percent).

Last month, foreigners recorded a purchase of 11.3 trillion won along with a sale of 1.5 trillion won in the South Korean listed bond market. The net investment added up to 7.076 trillion won with 2.7 trillion won of bonds redeemed at maturity.

Their net purchase continued for the third consecutive month and their listed bond holdings reached 119.2 trillion won at the end of May, breaking the previous record of 114.3 trillion won in nine months.

Their bond holdings accounted for 6.7 percent of all listed bonds. By region, Asian, European and American investors represented 41.7 percent, 34.5 percent and 9.8 percent of the bond holdings, respectively.

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