SEOUL, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Foreign investors sold South Korean stocks last month in a bid to take short-term profits, financial watchdog data showed Friday.
Offshore investors offloaded a net 98.0 billion won (67.9 million U.S. dollars) worth of local listed stocks in January, after purchasing domestic shares in the previous month, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
Foreigners remained net buyers in the main bourse KOSPI, but they were net sellers in the smaller KOSDAQ market.
Foreign holdings of local listed stocks totaled 1,701.4 trillion won at the end of January, taking up 32.0 percent of the total market capitalization.
Overseas investors snapped up a net 7.07 trillion won worth of local listed bonds in January.
Given the maturing debt worth 3.51 trillion won, the foreign net investment in the local bond market reached 3.56 trillion won last month.
The foreign ownership of domestic listed bonds amounted to 330.5 trillion won at the end of January, accounting for 11.9 percent of the total listed bonds. (1 won equals 0.00069 U.S. dollars) ■
