Foreign Securities Settlement Hit All-time High

Korea Securities Depository announced on June 16 that South Korean investors’ foreign securities settlement totaled an all-time high of US$129.97 billion from Jan. 1 to June 12. For reference, the settlement was US$84.06 billion in the first half of 2019 and it rose 56 percent year on year to US$171.22 billion in 2019.

The foreign stock settlement amounted to US$60.43 billion. Previously, it rose from US$22.7 billion to US$32.6 billion in 2018 and then to US$41 billion in 2019. The foreign stock settlement in the United States accounted for 87.4 percent of the settlement, followed by those in Hong Kong (US$3.94 billion), China (US$1.47 billion) and Japan (US$1.37 billion).

In that period, South Korean investors net-bought US$530.77 million of Apple stocks, followed by Microsoft (US$434.96 million), Hasbro (US$386.16 million), Alphabet (US$354.54 million), Tesla (US$351.69 million), Boeing (US$206.34 million), Delta Airlines (US$159.91 million), Alibaba (US$153.73 million), Showa Denko (US$138.85 million) and Walt Disney (US$132.91 million).

Their preference for U.S. stocks is based on a conclusion that those surpass South Korean stocks in terms of growth potentials. “It seems that more and more South Korean investors are shunning the South Korean stock market, which has moved sideways for years,” Kiwoom Securities explained.