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Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. (Photo: Yonhap News) |
[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] South Korean individual and institutional investors, including pension funds, significantly increased their investments in U.S. stocks last year, making Korea one of the largest net buyers among major countries.
Analysis of the U.S. Treasury Department’s “Foreign Holdings of U.S. Securities” data shows that from January to November 2025, Korean investors purchased a net total of $66.3 billion (about 98 trillion KRW) in U.S. equities. Excluding special cases such as the Cayman Islands and Ireland, Korea ranked first among 77 countries tracked by the Treasury. This marks the first time Korea has been the largest net buyer of U.S. stocks since the statistics began in 2020. Korean investors accounted for 11% of total foreign net purchases of $626.1 billion.
Following Korea were Norway ($63.9 billion), Singapore ($59.3 billion), France ($49.4 billion), and Switzerland ($33.2 billion). Korea also surpassed other major Asian economies, including Singapore, Japan ($12.6 billion), and Taiwan ($9.8 billion). In 2024, Singapore had held the top spot while Korea ranked seventh with $14.9 billion in net purchases.
The surge in Korean investment into U.S. stocks, driven in part by AI-related market growth, coincided with the Korean won weakening past 1,400 per dollar in September 2025. Despite government measures in December offering capital gains tax exemptions for repatriated U.S. stock proceeds, net purchases resumed strongly at the start of 2026.
알파경제 Paul Lee 특파원(hoondork1977@alphabiz.co.kr)
