Value of foreign share holdings gains 10.3% this year

The value of South Korea's listed shares owned by foreign investors has climbed more than 10 percent this year as they loaded up on large caps, data showed Tuesday.

Offshore investors held 464.1 trillion won worth of shares traded on the main bourse and secondary KOSDAQ market as of last Wednesday, up 10.3 percent from end-2015 and taking up 30.56 percent of the total market capitalization, according to the data by the Korea Exchange.

The percentage represents a 1.42 percentage point increase from the end of last year.

The gain was led by foreigners' massive purchase of large-cap issues. Foreign investors owned 38.14 percent of large caps listed on the main KOSPI market, up 0.86 percentage point from the end of 2015.

The data also showed offshore investors buying a net 8.87 trillion won ($8.09 billion) on the main market this year, with their net buying reaching a yearly high of slightly over 4 trillion won in July.

South Korea's No. 1 cosmetics maker AmorePacific Corp. was the top buy among foreign investors with their net buying reaching 951.6 billion won.

Foreign investors posted the highest ownership ratio of 49.9 percent in electric and electronics shares, followed by the communications sector with 43.1 percent, transportation equipment with 37.8 percent, financials with 36.7 percent and chemicals with 32.3 percent.

On the main stock market, Namyang Dairy Products Co.'s preferred stock had the highest foreign ownership ratio of 92.6 percent, followed by Hankuk Glass Industries Co. with 80.7 percent and Samsung Electronics Co.'s preferred shares with 79.1 percent.