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Alsharq Tribune-Otaify
Foreigners bought South Korean stocks in December due mainly to rising expectations for the semiconductor boom, financial watchdog data showed Friday.
Offshore investors purchased a net 1.52 trillion won (1.05 billion U.S. dollars) worth of local listed stocks in December of 2025, after dumping domestic shares in the previous month, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
Foreign investors turned into net buyers in the main bourse KOSPI, while they shifted into net sellers in the smaller KOSDAQ market.
Foreign holdings of domestic listed stocks totaled 1,326.8 trillion won (913.3 billion dollars) at the end of December, taking up 30.8 percent of the total market capitalization.
Overseas investors snapped up a net 17.53 trillion won (12.0 billion dollars) worth of local listed bonds in December.
Given the maturing debt worth 9.64 trillion won (6.6 billion dollars), the foreign net investment in the local bond market reached 7.89 trillion won (5.4 billion dollars) last month.
The foreign ownership of domestic listed bonds amounted to 328.5 trillion won (226.1 billion dollars) at the end of December, accounting for 11.9 percent of the total listed bonds.
