Foreigners buy \10T in two months

Foreign investors’ net purchases of Korean stocks surpassed 10 trillion won ($9 billion) this year as they continued their buying spree in February amid hope of a U.S. recovery and easing euro zone woes, the financial watchdog said yesterday.

Foreign investors bought a net 3.9 trillion won of local stocks last month, bringing their net purchase for the first two months of this year to 10.1 trillion won, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

In January, foreigners bought 6.2 trillion won worth of local stocks, a record high for monthly purchases, after dumping a massive 9.6 trillion won worth of shares last year amid the first-ever U.S. credit cut and euro zone debt concerns.

“Both European and U.S. investors continued their net buying, which seems to be due to hope for a U.S. economic recovery and a growing appetite for riskier assets,” said an official at the FSS.

By country, British investors were the biggest investor group, with purchases amounting to 1.8 trillion won, followed by U.S. investors with 1.2 trillion won.

However, investors from Saudi Arabia and Singapore scaled back their holdings by 1.2 trillion won and 386.8 billion won, respectively.

Foreign investors’ stock holdings reached 396.2 trillion won, accounting for 30.7 percent of total stock ownership on the local bourse, according to the FSS.

Meanwhile, overseas investors’ net bond investments reached 1.8 trillion won last month, compared with 1.6 trillion won in January, due to growing confidence in Korea’s solid fundamentals and a strengthening Korean won, the FSS said.

Investors from Europe and the U.S. increased their bond investments, but Thai investors scaled back their investments for the fifth straight month.

Overseas investors’ bond holdings totaled 86.4 trillion won as of the end of February, compared with 84.6 trillion won in the previous month, according to the FSS. Yonhap