South Koreans are increasingly branching out to overseas stock markets as local bourse has been stuck in a boxed range for the last six years with holdings in U.S. stocks topping $2 billion milestone amid signs of robust recovery in the U.S. economy.

Equity balance in cross-border securities holdings by Korea nationals deposited with the Korea Securities Depository reached record-high of $6.1 billion as of Monday. Trade turnover in offshore equities surged by 51 percent from $8.1 billion in 2014 to $12.2 billion as of Dec. 21.

The majority - or 90 percent - of shares were purchased by individuals. They mostly targeted U.S. assets with trade in U.S. shares more than tripling from $563 million in 2012 to $2.08 billion as of 2016. Technology shares - mostly the well-known names like Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook - took up seven out the top 10 favorites among Koreans. This year’s winner for Koreans was Visa, investing $246.6 million worth amid signs of pickup in consumer spending in the U.S.

Koreans this year preferred U.S. equities over Chinese ones as they have room to grow further and the U.S. economy is on solid recovery path while the second’s largest economy is losing steam faster than expected.

Compared to the beginning of the year, Korean investors in the top 10 U.S. stock purchases on average earned 32.7 percent as of Thursday. During the same period, the top 10 Korean large-cap stocks generated average return of 17.8 percent. Apart from Samsung Electronics, most others yielded less than 10 percent.

“Since local bourse is dominated by foreign and institutional players, local retail investors are likely to turn more to overseas equities,” said an official at a local asset management company.

By Moon Il-ho, Chae Jong-won and Ko Min-suh

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