Foreigners Bought C$20.7 Billion of Canadian Securities in July Even as Canadians Offloaded U.S. Shares

By Robb M. Stewart

OTTAWA--Canadian investors cut their exposure to foreign securities in July with a record sale of U.S. shares, even as foreign investors' appetite for Canadian government debt remained strong.

The result was that international securities transactions generated a net inflow of funds into the Canadian economy of 51.28 billion Canadian dollars, the equivalent of US$36.66 billion, Statistics Canada said Thursday. That marked a sharp increase over the C$5.82 billion inflow in June and a C$13.09 billion outflow of funds in May, the first since February.

Canadian investors sold C$30.63 billion in foreign securities in July, the data agency said.

That included an unprecedented C$31 billion in U.S. shares sold during the month, after Canadians invested about C$78.1 billion in the first half of the year. The divestment was mainly in shares of large U.S. technology companies.

Canadians also reduced their holdings of U.S. government bonds by about C$5.1 billion in the latest month, a sixth consecutive sell-down to bring the total offloaded since January to C$31.3 billion. This activity was partially offset by acquisitions of U.S. corporate and non-U.S. foreign bonds in July.

Nonresident investors purchased a net C$20.65 billion in Canadian securities during the month, taking the cumulative year-to-date purchases to C$178.89 billion compared with C$3.49 billion in the same period last year.

The activity was led by foreign purchases of federal government bonds, totaling C$22.66 billion in July. Since the beginning of the year, foreign investment in federal government bonds has reached a record C$104.02 billion, compared with C$13.8 billion in the same period in 2025. The share of total outstanding federal government bonds held by foreign investors has increased to 46.5% during the first seven months of 2026 from 40.2%.

Nonresident investors also bought C$7.2 billion of Canadian shares, the largest monthly investment of the year as they targeted mainly energy and mining stocks.

The monthly international securities report covers a portfolio of transactions in equity and investment fund shares, bonds and money market instruments for both Canadian and foreign issues. The activity excludes transactions in equity and debt instruments between affiliated enterprises.

Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 17, 2026 10:01 ET (14:01 GMT)