Canada's international transactions in securities, February 2025
Released: 2025-04-17
Canadian investors acquired $27.2 billion of foreign securities in February, led by a record investment in US equity securities, which more than offset the significant divestment in these instruments in January. Meanwhile, foreign investors reduced their exposure to Canadian securities by $6.5 billion, led by the highest monthly divestment in the Canadian equity market since October 2007.
As a result, international transactions in securities generated a net outflow of funds of $33.6 billion from the Canadian economy in February. This follows two consecutive months of strong inflows of funds totalling $21.2 billion.
Chart 1
Canada's international transactions in securities
Unprecedented Canadian investment in US shares
Canadian investors increased their exposure to foreign securities by $27.2 billion in February, compared with a $3.0 billion divestment in January. The rebound in investment was essentially in US shares.
Chart 2
Canadian investment in foreign equity and investment fund shares
Canadian investors bought $27.9 billion of foreign equity securities in February, the largest investment since December 2023. In February, record acquisitions of $29.8 billion in US shares were slightly offset by sales of $2.0 billion in non-US shares. The investment in the US stock market followed a sizable divestment of $15.6 billion in January and focused on shares of large capitalization technology and financial firms. US share prices, as measured by the Standard and Poor's (S & P) 500 composite index, reached an all-time high in mid-February before retreating by the end of the month. For the month as a whole, the index was down by 1.4%.
Meanwhile, Canadian investors reduced their holdings of foreign debt securities by $0.7 billion in February. While investors increased their exposure to US government money market instruments and US corporate bonds, they decreased their holdings of US government bonds and non-US foreign debt instruments.
Strong foreign divestment in Canadian shares
Foreign investors reduced their holdings of Canadian securities by $6.5 billion in February, the first divestment in 12 months. Foreign investors sold Canadian equity securities, while they acquired debt instruments.
Chart 3
Foreign investment in Canadian equity and investment fund shares
Non-resident investors reduced their exposure to Canadian shares by $21.9 billion in February, the highest monthly divestment since October 2007. On an industry basis, the declines in February were widespread, led by shares from the management of companies and enterprises, manufacturing as well as energy and mining industries. Canadian share prices, as measured by the S & P/Toronto Stock Exchange composite index, decreased slightly in February.
At the same time, non-resident investors increased their exposure to Canadian bonds by $9.9 billion in February, down from a significant investment of $33.5 billion in the previous month. They also increased their exposure to Canadian money market instruments by $5.6 billion, following a large divestment in January.
Chart 4
Foreign investment in Canadian bonds, by sector of issuer
The activity in the Canadian bond market in February reflected foreign acquisitions of $19.2 billion of corporate bonds, which were moderated by divestments of $6.4 billion in federal government bonds and $2.9 billion in provincial government bonds.
The foreign investment in Canadian money market instruments in February targeted private corporate paper (+$7.3 billion) and provincial governments paper (+$1.9 billion).
In February, the Bank of Canada held its policy rate at 3.0%, and the Canadian dollar appreciated by 0.3% against the US dollar.
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Note to readers
The data series on international transactions in securities covers portfolio transactions in equity and investment fund shares, bonds and money market instruments for both Canadian and foreign issues. This activity excludes transactions in equity and debt instruments between affiliated enterprises. These are classified as foreign direct investment in international accounts.
Equity and investment fund shares include common and preferred equities, as well as units or shares of investment funds. For the sake of brevity, the terms "shares" and "equity and investment fund shares" have the same meaning.
Debt securities include bonds and money market instruments.
Bonds have an original term to maturity of more than one year.
Money market instruments have an original term to maturity of one year or less.
Government of Canada paper includes Treasury bills and US-dollar Canada bills.
All values in this release are net transactions unless otherwise stated.
Next release
Data on Canada's international transactions in securities for March will be released on May 16.
Products
The International trade statistics portal is available on Statistics Canada website.
As a complement to this release, the data visualization product "Securities statistics," part of the series Statistics Canada – Data Visualization Products (71-607-X), is available online.
The User Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-606-G) is also available.
The Methodological Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-607-X) is available.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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