Foreign investors exposure to Canadian securities fell more than $9 billion
Canadian government bonds were out of favour with non-resident investors in April while Canadian investors snapped up Treasuries.
The newly released data from Statistics Canada reveals that Foreign investors reduced their exposure to Canadian bonds by $25.1 billion, driven by retirements of bonds, mainly those with an original maturity of 2 to 10 years. This was the largest divestment of Canadian bonds since December 2018.
Private corporate bonds accounted for $17.3 billion of the decrease followed by $7.1 billion for provincial government bonds and $2.5 billion for federal government bonds.
However, foreign investors acquired $11.6 billion in Canadian shares across multiple industries with particular focus on energy and mining and credit intermediation and related activities. This boost for equities follows more than $40 billion divested by foreign investors in the first three months of 2025.
Total exposure to Canadian securities was reduced by foreign investors to the tune of $9.4 billion.
Meanwhile, Canadian investors acquired $4.1 billion in foreign securities in April, far below the $15.6 billion acquired in March and $23.9 billion in February. In April it was US government bonds that were in focus, with $1.1 billion Treasury bills acquired, while US corporate bonds and non-US foreign bonds saw small divestments.
Canadian investors cut $0.2 billion from their exposure to foreign shares including $0.3 billion in US shares offset by a $0.1 Billion investment in non-US foreign shares.
Overall, international transactions in securities generated a net outflow of funds of $13.5 billion from the Canadian economy in April, marking the third consecutive month of net outflows totalling $67.6 billion.
