[ Investment > FPI Report ]

orea Stock Exchange(KSE) After being net sellers in April, foreign investors switched to being net buyers in May. Together with an upsurge in the Korea Composite Price Index (KOSPI) of KSE-listed shares, the net buying spree resulted in an overall expansion in the value of foreign holdings by almost 6 percent. Foreigners bought 5.09 trillion won worth of stock and sold 4.52 trillion won to account for 11.8 percent of all trading and be net buyers to the sum of 570 billon won. Meanwhile, a 5.68-percent rise in the KOSPI from 599.35 to 633.42 boosted foreign holdings by 5.8 percent (or 4.94 trillion won) onmonth to 90.2 trillion won. This translated as an increase in the foreign stake of the KOSPI of 0.1 percentage point to 34.5 percent of the 261.40-trillion won total.
  Leading the pack among net buyers were investors from the United States (521 billion won) and Luxembourg (77.1 billion won). The biggest net sellers were from Malaysia (73 billion won) and Britain (54.1 billion).
  The top-five net purchased stocks were Samsung Electronics, Samsung Electronics (preferred), SK Telecom, Daewoo Shipbuilding and Hyundai Motors. The top-five net sold stocks were Kookmin Bank, KT Corp., Samsung Electro-Mechanics, LG Electronics and Shinsegae.

   Korea Security Dealers Automated Quotation (KOSDAQ)Aggregate foreign investment in the KOSDAQ jumped by almost 8 percent in May on the back of net buying by foreigners plus a marked upturn in the automated market¡¯s index. After three consecutive months of net selling, foreigners became net buyers on the KOSDAQ, disposing of 647 billion won of stock but acquiring 656.4 billion won for a net buy of 9.3 billion won. Over the same period, the KOSDAQ index increased by 10.23 percent from 42.8 to 47.18 to boost foreign holdings by 7.77 percent or 294.8 billion won to 4.09 trillion won. However, the ratio of foreign holdings in the 41.4 trillion total slid 0.2 percentage points to 9.9 percent. The biggest net buyers were from the Cayman Is. (71.4 billion won) and United States (28.3 billion won). Malaysians were the biggest net sellers (44 billion won) followed by Irish investors (3.9 billion).

   Bonds Foreigners unloaded 8 billion won worth of bonds in May but purchased 39 billion won worth to be net buyers to the sum of 31.0 billion won. Nonetheless, foreign holdings increased by only 25.3 billion won to total 1.34 trillion won. Overall, special bonds accounted for 771 billion won (57.7 percent), corporate bonds, 283 billion won, (21.2 percent) and government bonds 282 billion won (21.2 percent).

   Futures Some 394,391 stock price index futures were bought/liquidated by foreigners in May and 382,490 sold/redeemed for a total of 776,881 contracts concluded. Foreign trading was down 0.7 percentage points on April to 7.7 percent of the total.
  In the stock price index option market foreigners purchased/liquidated 12,325,327 contracts and sold/ redeemed 12,144,249 for a total of 24,469,576 transacted to account for 7 percent of all trading.

   Investor Profile Registered investors grew by 86 in number during May to total 14,561. By type, institutional investors grew by 69 to 9,458 to represent 65 percent of the total, while private investors increased by 17 to 5,103 (35 percent). Among institutional investors, 6,401 (44.0 percent) were registered by investment companies, 909 (6.2 percent) by pension funds, securities companies, 402 (2.8 percent and 391 (2.7 percent) by banks. The greatest number of registered investors came from the United States with 5,573 (38.3 percent), followed by Britain, with 1,263 (8.7 percent) and Japan, 1,186 (8.1 percent).