Financial Supervisory Service, March Foreign Securities Investment Trends
Record High Net Purchases by Foreigners Since Related Aggregation
On the 8th, both the KOSPI and KOSDAQ opened slightly lower. The electronic board in the dealing room at the Hana Bank headquarters in Euljiro, Seoul, displays the current stock market and exchange rates. Photo by Heo Younghan younghan@
It was revealed that foreigners net purchased more than 15 trillion won in the domestic stock market in the first quarter of this year. This is the largest scale since related statistics began in 1998.
The Financial Supervisory Service announced on the 8th that the net purchase amount of foreigners in the domestic stock market in the first quarter of 2024 (January to March) was 15.8 trillion won. Accordingly, the total value of domestic listed stocks held by foreigners in the first quarter reached 820.1 trillion won, accounting for 29.0% of the market capitalization.
Looking at March alone, the net purchase amount of foreigners in listed stocks was 5.102 trillion won. They net purchased 4.215 trillion won in the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) market and 887 billion won in the KOSDAQ market. By purchase region, Europe accounted for the largest amount at 3.3 trillion won, followed by the United States (1.2 trillion won) and Asia (700 billion won).
By country in terms of holdings, the United States held the largest amount at 324.9 trillion won, which accounts for 39.6% of the total foreign holdings. This was followed by Europe with 256.5 trillion won (31.3%), Asia with 120.3 trillion won (14.7%), and the Middle East with 18 trillion won (2.2%).
Meanwhile, the bond holdings of foreigners in the first quarter of this year decreased by 4.5 trillion won compared to the previous month, totaling 244.3 trillion won. As of the end of March, the amount of listed bonds held by foreigners was 244.3 trillion won, accounting for 9.6% of the outstanding listed bonds.
Looking at the investment status by remaining maturity, bonds with a remaining maturity of over 5 years accounted for 104.9 trillion won, or 43.0% of the total. Bonds with a remaining maturity between 1 and 5 years accounted for 98.9 trillion won (40.5%), and bonds with less than 1 year remaining maturity totaled 40.5 trillion won (16.6%).
Government bonds held by foreigners were 229.9 trillion won as of the end of March, accounting for 90.4% of the total bond holdings. They also held special bonds worth 23.1 trillion won (9.5%).
As of March, the net purchase amount of listed bonds by foreigners was 2.358 trillion won. Among these, 8.204 trillion won was redeemed upon maturity, resulting in a net recovery of 5.846 trillion won.
By region, in March, Europe made net investments worth 1.1 trillion won. The Americas and Asia regions showed net recoveries. In terms of holdings, Asia accounted for 113.4 trillion won, or 46.4%, followed by Europe with 72.6 trillion won (29.7%).
By remaining maturity, net investments were made in bonds with over 5 years (1.4 trillion won) and 1 to 5 years (1.3 trillion won) remaining maturity. Conversely, bonds with less than 1 year remaining maturity showed net recoveries amounting to 8.5 trillion won.
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