Foreign sell-off of Korean stocks hits record at nearly 50 trillion won

Foreign investors off-loaded a record amount of Korean stocks in June amid profit-taking, data showed Friday.

Offshore investors off-loaded a net 49.34 trillion won ($33.8 billion) worth of local stocks last month, extending their selling binge to a sixth month, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).

Following their net selling in June, offshore investors owned 2,908.6 trillion won worth of local stocks, or 36.4 percent of total market capitalization.

By country, investors from Britain were the top sellers in May, off-loading a net 32.22 trillion won worth of shares, followed by those from the United States with a net sell-off of 23.2 trillion won, the latest findings showed.

In the local bond market, foreign investors bought a net 13.9 trillion won worth of local debt last month.

Their holdings of Korean bonds stood at 334.8 trillion won as of end-June, accounting for 11.8 percent of listed bonds here, the FSS data showed.

Yonhap