By Nam Hyun-woo
Foreign investors bought a net 12 trillion won ($10.15 billion) in listed stocks last year, while net selling a similar amount of bonds during the same period, data showed Monday.
According to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), foreign investors net purchased 12.11 trillion of listed stocks, raising their cumulative holdings to 481.57 trillion won at the end of December, up 61.6 trillion won or 14.4 percent from a year earlier. That accounted for 31.2 percent of the entire market cap of listed firms.
The FSS said the capital move was stable last year despite negative events, such as North Korea’s nuclear tests, Brexit in June, the decision to deploy a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in July and the U.S. rate hike in December.
Of those events, causing the biggest woes was the THAAD issue. Data showed Chinese investors have been selling Korean stocks since last August. From August to December, they sold a net 786 billion won. Throughout the year, they sold a net 1.6 trillion won.
Despite the Chinese selling spree, investors from the U.S. and Luxemburg bought a net worth of 7.67 trillion won and 4.29 trillion won, respectively, covering the outflow.
In the bond market, foreign investors sold a net 12.34 billion in 2016. Starting February, they continued selling and it peaked in the second half of last year because of the projected U.S. rate hike, as well as extra outflows occurring amid redemptions.
Foreigners’ cumulative bond holdings stood at 89.3 trillion won at the end of last year, down 12.1 trillion won or 11.9 percent from a year earlier.