(Photo = Yonhap news)

 

[Alpha Biz=(Chicago) Reporter Kim Jisun] In the first quarter of this year, foreigners' net purchases of stocks in the securities market exceeded KRW 15 trillion for the first time in history.

According to the Korea Exchange on the 30th, foreign investors bought a net 15.77 trillion won worth of stocks on the stock market until the 29th of this year.

This is the highest quarterly figure since 1998 when the exchange began compiling related statistics.

The previous high was 14.798 trillion won in the third quarter of 2009.

Monthly net foreign purchases amounted to 3.483 trillion won in January, 7.858 trillion won in February and 4.428 trillion won in March.

In the first quarter, foreigners bought a large number of South Korean semiconductor stocks due to the craze for AI (Artificial Intelligence) semiconductor stocks from the U.S., and also included a number of low-PBR stocks that are expected to benefit from the government's corporate value-up program.

The largest net purchase by foreigners was Samsung Electronics, which bought a net KRW 5.52 trillion.

Hyundai Motor bought 2.141 trillion won and SK Hynix bought 1.756 trillion won, respectively, the second and third largest.

Samsung C&T (1.93 trillion won), Samsung Electronics Woo (1.54 trillion won), KB Financial (665 billion won), and Samsung Biologics (521 billion won).

Three of the top 10 foreign net buying stocks were semiconductor-related, and five were found to be low-PBR stocks such as automobiles and financial stocks.

The stock prices of these 10 stocks all rose compared to the end of last year, with an average increase of 22.6%.

This is seven times higher than the KOSPI growth rate (3.4%) during the same period.

 

 

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