Foreign investors are maintaining their active buying spree on Korea’s main bourse, posting a combined net purchase of stocks worth about 10 trillion won ($9.3 billion) since the end of August.

According to the Korea Exchange, foreigners net purchased local stocks for the 26th consecutive trading session between Aug. 23 and Oct. 2. The collective volume came to 9.6 trillion, marking the highest figure in 15 years since the 1997 Asian foreign exchange crisis.

Though the U.S. government’s tapering strategy fueled investors’ anxiety toward emerging markets, the “Buy Korea Wave” on the equity market has come under spotlight as an extraordinary case.

Goldman Sachs stressed in its September research report that Korean stocks are still undervalued despite strong fundamentals, compared to those of other emerging countries.

Foreigner investors concentrated on buying the five highest-valued items, accounting for about 47.9 percent of the entire net buying on the exchange over the corresponding period.

Samsung Electronics took up the biggest part of foreign buying, with 2.7 trillion won net buying, followed by Hyundai Motor, with 676.3 billion won net purchase.

Hyundai Mobis, POSCO and Kia Motors also comprised the next largest portions of the foreign buying, which amounted to about 198.5 billion won, 688.8 billion won and 373 billion won, respectively.

Besides stocks, foreigners poured about 827 billion won into the KODEX 200, the country’s first domestic exchange traded fund, which benchmarks against the KOSPI 200.

The locals, on the other hand, played a large sell strategy. For instance, local investment trust firms sold about 1.6 trillion worth of the KODEX 200, half of which were later bought by foreigners.

The buy-sell contrast occurred in stocks as well, best shown in NHN Entertainment, the strongest both in the foreign net selling and the local purchase.

By Chung Joo-won (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)