SEOUL, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Foreign investors continued to buy South Korean stocks for the third straight month last month on eased worry about inflation, financial watchdog data showed Friday.
Foreigners purchased a net 403 billion won (324.5 million U.S. dollars) worth of domestic stocks in December, after scooping up shares worth 3.58 trillion won (2.9 billion dollars) in October and 2.93 trillion won (2.4 billion dollars) in November, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.
Offshore investors remained net buyers as slower inflation alleviated concerns about rapid interest rate hikes.
After peaking at 6.3 percent in July last year, the country's headline inflation had been on the decline to 5.0 percent in December.
Foreign holdings of domestic listed stocks totaled 573.8 trillion won (462.1 billion dollars) at the end of December, accounting for 26.4 percent of the total market capitalization.
Offshore investors bought a net 2.87 trillion won (2.3 billion dollars) worth of local listed bonds last month.
Given the maturing debts worth 6.90 trillion won (5.6 billion dollars), the foreign net withdrawal from the local bond market stood at 4.03 trillion won (3.3 billion dollars) in December.
Foreign ownership of domestic bonds amounted to 228.6 trillion won (184.1 billion dollars) at the end of December, taking up 9.7 percent of the total listed bonds. ■
