Foreign investors' sale of South Korean stocks hit the highest in 16 months last month on worry about the COVID-19 outbreak, central bank data showed Thursday.
A foreign fund of 2.66 billion U.S. dollars flowed out of the local stock market in February, marking the biggest foreign capital outflow since October 2018, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
Unease over the COVID-19 outbreak led to foreign sell-off as the number of confirmed cases began to soar from mid-February, topping 7,800 as of Thursday morning local time.
Foreigners moved to safer assets such as domestic bonds, into which 310 million dollars of foreign funds flowed.
The premium on the five-year credit default swap (CDS), which gauges the country's sovereign credit risk, averaged 26 basis points in February, up 3 basis points from the previous month.
The won/dollar exchange rate closed at 1,213.7 won per dollar as of the end of February, up 21.9 won from a month earlier.
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