SEOUL, August 10 (AJP) -South Korea’s campaign to draw investor money back home has failed to break the country’s appetite for U.S. stocks, with overseas buying resuming in June and accelerating through early August, even without easing up on buying at home.
Nonfinancial corporations and other investors — a Bank of Korea category that includes households and companies outside the financial sector — sold a net $525.7 million of overseas equities in the second quarter, their first quarterly net sale in 10 quarters.
That marked a sharp reversal from the first quarter, when the group bought a net $9.91 billion of overseas equities after purchasing $14.69 billion in the final quarter of 2025.
But the retreat proved short-lived. The group sold $424.9 million in April and $605.5 million in May before returning to a net purchase of $504.7 million in June, showing that the quarterly pullback was concentrated in the first two months.
Institutional investors kept up buying overseas. General government entities purchased a net $7.20 billion of foreign equities during the quarter, deposit-taking institutions $786 million and other financial institutions $13.57 billion.
The April-May retreat came as Korean stocks rallied, expectations grew for tax incentives under the Reshoring Investment Account and the won hovered near 1,500 per dollar, making domestic equities relatively more attractive while raising the cost of buying assets abroad.
Korea Securities Depository data compiled by AJP showed Korean investors settled $33.84 billion of foreign equity purchases against $28.61 billion of sales between July 1 and Aug. 7, leaving net buying of $5.23 billion.
Virtually all of it went into U.S. equities. U.S. stocks drew a net $5.25 billion during the period — $4.64 billion in July and another $609.1 million through Aug. 7 — while all other overseas markets combined recorded a net $26.1 million sale.
Still, the renewed U.S. buying did not come at the expense of Korean stocks.
An AJP aggregation of daily Korea Exchange data showed retail investors bought a net 13.52 trillion won ($9.56 billion) of individual KOSPI and KOSDAQ shares between July 1 and Aug. 7. That included 5.04 trillion won in July and 8.48 trillion won in just the first seven days of August.
The parallel buying suggests Korean investors are not simply shifting money back and forth across the Pacific. They are adding exposure on both sides.
Demand also extended beyond equities. Korean investors settled $9.44 billion of overseas bond purchases and $5.74 billion of sales during the July 1-Aug. 7 period, producing net buying of $3.71 billion.
The domestic and overseas figures are not directly comparable. Korea Exchange data cover retail transactions in individual KOSPI and KOSDAQ shares and exclude exchange-traded funds and Nextrade transactions, while the overseas figures cover settlements by Korean investors more broadly.
The BOK is due to publish its July balance-of-payments report on Sept. 4, offering the first official indication of whether the renewed overseas buying is also visible in data compiled on a consistent investor and accounting basis.
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