Foreigners buy Canadian bonds, T-bills in April

flovestock

Ottawa— Reuters
Last updated Thursday, Jun. 16, 2011 8:48AM EDT

Foreigners continued to pour money into Canada in April, snapping up bonds and money market paper, while Canadian sold off U.S. government bonds and other foreign securities, Statistics Canada reported Thursday.

“Foreign investment in Canadian securities strengthened further in April, reaching a three-month high of $8.2-billion,” the federal agency said. This was up from $6.4-billion in March.

Foreign investors have been attracted by Canada’s relatively strong performance since the economic crisis and higher yields, and bought a record $117.4-billion last year. In April they bought $4.9-billion of Canadian bonds and $3.0-billion in money market paper.

They also added a net $248-million in Canadian stocks. Underlying this was $2.2-billion in acquisitions on the secondary market, but Statscan said this was mostly offset by outflows linked to U.S. acquisitions of Canadian mining firms

Canadians sold $3.3-billion in foreign securities in April, including $2.5-billion in bonds, mostly those of the U.S. government. They also sold modest amounts of foreign money market paper, as well as non-U.S. stocks, especially Japanese shares.