Foreign investors made their largest investment of the year in Canadian securities in September, Statistics Canada said today.

Meanwhile, Canadian investors added to their stock of foreign securities for the eighth consecutive month.

Foreigners bought $4.9 billion worth of Canadian securities, with two-thirds of that going for stocks and $1.9 billion going for bonds.

Canadians acquired $5 billion in foreign securities in September, with bonds accounting for $3.9 billion and money market paper $1.2 billion.

The agency says foreign bonds have weighed heavily in Canadian foreign portfolio investments for some time, and September marked the 13th straight month of investment in those instruments.

Most of the foreign bonds purchased in September were U.S. treasury bonds, at $2.3 billion the largest investment in those issues since November 2002.