Canadian investors acquired $2.9 billion of foreign securities in February with acquisitions comprised of equity and money market instruments, Statistics Canada said Monday.

Canadians invested a further $2.5 billion in foreign equities in February. Non-US foreign stocks gained popularity over the month, with acquisitions of $1.6 billion, mainly shares of European oil and gas exploration firms.

Meanwhile, foreign investors added $6.1 billion of Canadian securities to their portfolios in February, investing in both bonds and equities, StatsCan said.

Acquisitions of Canadian bonds carried over into February, as non-residents picked up a further $4.2 billion to add to the $6.5 billion acquired in January.

Nearly two-thirds were federal government enterprise bonds, with the remainder almost equally split between federal government and private corporate bonds.

The overall supply of Canadian federal government debt remained high, in line with the previous four months, but was mainly comprised of long-term instruments in February.

As a result, non-residents acquired $1.1 billion of federal government bonds, mainly five-and 10-year benchmark bonds.

IE