Foreign Investors Net Sell Over 30 Trillion Won of Domestic Stocks This Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Ji Yeon-jin] Last month, foreigners net sold nearly 8 trillion won worth of domestic listed stocks, withdrawing over 30 trillion won from the stock market.

The Financial Supervisory Service announced on the 13th that in August, foreigners net sold 7.816 trillion won in listed stocks and net invested 1.689 trillion won in listed bonds, resulting in a total net withdrawal of 6.128 trillion won.

Foreigners had been on a monthly net selling streak since the beginning of this year, switched to net buying in April, but resumed selling stocks again after just one month, continuing a four-month consecutive net selling streak through last month. As a result, as of last month, foreigners’ holdings of listed stocks stood at 797.9 trillion won, shrinking to 28.9% of the market capitalization. This is the first time since April 2016 (28.8%) that foreign stock holdings have fallen to 28%.

They net sold about 3.3 trillion won worth in Europe, and also sold approximately 1.6 trillion won and 1.2 trillion won in the Americas and China, respectively. The United States held 325.8 trillion won worth of domestic listed stocks, accounting for 40.8% of the total foreign holdings, followed by Europe (250.1 trillion won) and Asia (102.8 trillion won).

As of last month, foreigners held 197.1 trillion won in listed bonds, accounting for 8.9% of the total listed bond balance. They net invested 1.3 trillion won in Europe, 900 billion won in Asia, 700 billion won in the Middle East, and 700 billion won in the Americas. The largest holdings were in Asia (91.2 trillion won), Europe (57.3 trillion won), and the Americas (19.6 trillion won), in that order.

Last month, foreigners net invested 1.5 trillion won in government bonds and net withdrew 700 billion won in Monetary Stabilization Bonds. As of the end of last month, foreigners held 152 trillion won (77.1%) worth of government bonds, and their holdings of special bonds amounted to 45.1 trillion won (22.9%).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.