Seoul [South Korea], October 19: Foreign investors sold South Korean stocks for the second successive month on lingering worry about economic slowdown, financial watchdog data showed Thursday.
Foreigners offloaded a net 1.71 trillion won (1.3 billion U.S. dollars) worth of local listed stocks in September after selling shares worth 1.18 trillion won (874.1 million dollars) in the prior month, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
Offshore investors sold stocks both in the benchmark KOSPI and the tech-savvy KOSDAQ markets.
U.S. and Asian investors increased their holdings of local stocks, but European investors dumped domestic shares.
Foreign holdings of domestic listed stocks totaled 663.7 trillion won (491.6 billion dollars) at the end of September, taking up 26.7 percent of the total market capitalization.
Overseas investors bought a net 8.02 trillion won (5.9 billion dollars) worth of local listed bonds in September.
Given the maturing debts worth 8.65 trillion won (6.4 billion dollars), the foreign net disinvestment in the local bond market stood at 637 billion won (471.9 million dollars) last month.
Foreign ownership of domestic bonds amounted to 242.4 trillion won (179.6 billion dollars) at the end of September, accounting for 9.8 percent of the total listed bonds.
Source: Xinhua