Foreign investors continued their net buying of South Korean stocks for the fourth straight month in September, raising their share ownership to a near record high, data showed Monday.

Offshore investors bought a net 1.63 trillion won ($1.46 billion) worth of listed South Korean shares last month, marking the fourth consecutive month of net purchases, according to the data by the Financial Supervisory Service.

Their cumulative net purchases reached 11.1 trillion won in the first nine months of the year, raising their ownership of listed stocks to 30.5 percent of the total market value as of end-September, unchanged from the previous month. 

As of the end of last month, the outstanding amount of listed stocks owned by foreigners came to 470.75 trillion won, close to the record high of 470.89 trillion won posted in April last year.

Net purchases by European and US investors stood at a combined 2.2 trillion won in September, while investors from Asian countries sold a net 600 billion won.

By country, Luxembourg was the largest net buyer with 900 billion won, followed by the United States with 700 billion won.

Singapore was the biggest net seller with 400 billion won.

US investors held the largest amount of South Korean stocks with 188.3 trillion won, or 40 percent of total foreign stock ownership, trailed by European investors with 139.6 trillion won and Asian investors with 59 trillion won.

The financial watchdog didn't say why foreign investors continued their net buying of South Korean stocks in September.

The data also showed that foreign investors pulled their money out of the South Korean bond market last month.

Offshore investors sold a net 700 billion won worth of South Korean bonds in September, cutting their bond holdings to 95.6 trillion won, or 5.9 percent of the total value of listed bonds. (Yonhap)