SEOUL, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Foreign investors sold South Korean stocks for a third successive month amid the Middle East tensions, financial watchdog data showed Thursday.
Offshore investors offloaded a net 43.51 trillion won (29.5 billion U.S. dollars) worth of local listed stocks in March, continuing to sell off since January, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
Foreigners remained net sellers in the main bourse KOSPI, but they turned into net buyers in the smaller KOSDAQ market.
Foreign holdings of domestic stocks totaled 1,576.2 trillion won (1.07 trillion dollars) at the end of March, taking up 30.7 percent of the total market capitalization.
Overseas investors snapped up a net 5.44 trillion won (3.7 billion dollars) worth of local listed bonds last month.
Given the maturing debt worth 16.36 trillion won (11.1 billion dollars), the foreign net disinvestment in the domestic bond market reached 10.92 trillion won (7.4 billion dollars) last month.
Foreign ownership of domestic listed bonds amounted to 323.8 trillion won (219.6 billion dollars) at the end of March, accounting for 11.6 percent of the total listed bonds. ■
