Foreigners buy record number of Canadian securities

Foreign investors invested a record CA$53.2 billion into Candian securities in 2004, Statistics Canada says.

This was almost double the CA$18.5 billion recorded in 2003 and just beat the previous record of CA$52.8 billion in 1993.

Of the 53.2 billion, about 35 billion was put into stocks and 20 billion into various bonds.

"For the year as a whole, foreign investors picked up $20.2 billion in Canadian bonds; a substantial increase over the $7.0 billion purchased in 2003 but just half the high of 2001," the agency said.

Roughly half of the purchases were directly influenced by the acquisition of John Hancock Financial services in April which has created the largest North American insurer.

Canadians themselves were also buying foreign securities in record amounts.

"Overall for 2004, Canadian investors purchased $16.2 billion in foreign securities. Of this, outlays of $15.1 billion were made in foreign bonds - almost double the amount from the year before and by far the largest ever yearly investment by Canadian investors in the foreign bond market,"