Money Inflow
The Financial Supervisory Service announced on Mar. 5 that foreign investors accounted for 30.7 percent, or 437.5 trillion won (US$398.1 billion), of domestic stock market capitalization as of the end of last month. They also recorded a net purchase of 573 billion won (US$521 million) in February after net sales of 1.932 trillion won (US$1.758 billion) in December 2014, and 949 billion won (US$863 million) in the following months, respectively.
By country, Switzerland showed a net buy of 589.6 billion won (US$536.6 million), followed by Japan (271.2 billion won, or US$246.8 million) and the U.S. (250 billion won, or US$227 million). Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Luxembourg recorded net sales of 280 billion won (US$255 million), 257.5 billion won (US$234.3 million), and 194.3 billion won (US$176.8 million) each. Asian and European investors led the buying trends, wich Asian investors purchasing stocks worth 550.8 billion won (US$501.3 million) and their European counterparts 514.2 billion won (US$467.8 million), respectively.
Foreigners increased their domestic bond investment for the second consecutive month, too. Last month, their net bond investment added up to approximately 600 billion won (US$546 million). The net bond purchase increased by about 2.9 trillion won (US$2.6 billion) to 4.3 trillion won (US$3.9 billion) in February, and the redemption on maturity went up by 2.3 trillion won (US$2.1 billion) month-on-month to 3.7 trillion won (US$3.4 billion).
China’s net investment reached 397.8 billion won (US$361.6 million), followed by Singapore (249.3 billion won, US$226.9 million) and France (91.7 billion won, US$83.5 million). Chile recorded a net outflow of 94.5 billion won (US$86.0 million) with Israel (80.5 billion won, US$73.3 million) and Thailand (77 billion won, US$70 million). Altogether, foreign investors held listed bonds worth 101.1 trillion won (US$92.02 billion) as of the end of last month.