Foreign investors add more Canadian paper in June

Canadian investors piled into foreign bonds in June, outpacing foreign investors’ robust buying of Canadian securities, Statistics Canada reports.

In June, Canadian investors made their largest investment in foreign securities in seven months, adding $14.4-billion worth, the national statistical agency reported.

The monthly surge was driven by $8.9 billion in U.S. government bond buying, and $4.6 billion in non-U.S. foreign bonds.

At the same time, investors sold $1.2 billion in foreign equities.

The strong monthly investment followed a $1.7-billion selloff in the previous month, and pushed the second-quarter buying total to $14.6 billion.

However, for the first half, Canadian investors still ended up reducing their holdings of foreign securities by $8.75 billion, after selling $23.4-billion worth in the first quarter.

StatsCan also reported that foreign investors added $12.6-billion worth of Canadian securities in June, up from $10.2 billion in May, pushing the quarterly total to $36.5 billion.

“Foreign investment in June mainly targeted federal government money market instruments for a second consecutive month,” it said.

In particular, foreign investors added $8.4-billion worth of federal government paper in the month, along with $8.1 billion in bonds.

“Not for nothing, the growing foreign appetite for Canada’s yield-ier short-term paper has coincided with an enlarged federal T-bill program,” said National Bank Financial (NBF) Inc. in a research note. It adding that foreign investors now own more federal government paper than the central bank once again.

However, foreign investors also shed $3.9 billion of Canadian equities in June.

Overall, the surge in buying by Canadian investors resulted in a $1.9-billion net outflow of funds in June, which left the second quarter with a net inflow of $21.8 billion into the economy, StatsCan reported.

James Langton

James is a senior reporter for Advisor.ca and its sister publication, Investment Executive. He has been reporting on regulation, securities law, industry news and more since 1994.