OTTAWA, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Canadian investment in foreign securities reached 13.8 billion Canadian dollars (about 10.4 billion U.S. dollars) in December 2019, led by purchases of equity instruments, according to Statistics Canada on Monday.
Meanwhile, foreign investors reduced their holdings of Canadian securities by 9.6 billion Canadian dollars (about 7.3 billion U.S. dollars), mainly in the form of bonds.
As a result, international transactions in securities generated a net outflow of funds of 23.4 billion Canadian dollars (17.7 billion U.S. dollars) from the Canadian economy in December, the largest monthly outflow since December 2014.
Canadian investors acquired 14.7 billion Canadian dollars (11.1 billion U.S. dollars) of foreign equities in December. Investors added both U.S. and non-U.S. stocks to their portfolios. This was the largest monthly investment in foreign stocks since December 2017.
Despite the investment activity recorded in the final two months of 2019, total acquisitions of foreign equities for the year amounted to 5.5 billion Canadian dollars (about 4.2 billion U.S. dollars), down slightly from 2018 and well below the level of acquisitions of 68.6 billion Canadian dollars (about 51.8 billion U.S. dollars) in 2017.
