{"id":8157,"date":"2026-04-17T18:43:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T18:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/8157\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T18:43:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T18:43:17","slug":"statscan-canadians-moved-a-record-amount-of-money-on-foreign-assets-in-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/8157\/","title":{"rendered":"StatsCan: Canadians moved a record amount of money on foreign assets in February"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canadians moved a record amount of money on foreign assets in February, causing more money to leave the country than foreign investors brought in.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not a cause for concern yet, says one economist. <\/p>\n

Canadian investment in foreign securities hit its highest level in nearly two years at $25.4 billion, according to Statistics Canada, <\/a>significantly outweighing the $6.2 billion that foreign investors put into Canadian assets.<\/p>\n

They spent a record $32.9 billion on foreign stocks, specifically large U.S. tech firms.<\/p>\n

While it may appear concerning, the data isn\u2019t all that bad, explains Pedro Antunes, chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we need to take it with a grain of salt,\u201d says Antunes. <\/p>\n

He says international tractional data can be extremely volatile, and the investments reflect Canadian investment portfolios rather than long term investments that drive Canada\u2019s economic growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly the U.S. tech sector has been doing very well…but it\u2019s hard to know what specifically happened in that one month.\u201d says Antunes. <\/p>\n

He stresses that this is a securities investment, not a greenfield investment, which would involve building new productive physical assets.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd of course, when we buy foreign assets, that does bring a stream of income into the country,\u201d says Antunes. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think all this suggests is that there was something more attractive for Canadian investors than perhaps what\u2019s within Canadian markets at this point in time.\u201d <\/p>\n

There is still interest in Canadian bonds<\/p>\n

The better gauge of economic stress is the bond market and the Canadian dollar, which seem to be holding up,” says Antunes. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still able to sell our bonds,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cBond yields are really what sets interest rates for Canadians. So this is where I\u2019m a little comforted by the fact that there\u2019s still inflows to purchase bonds in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foreign investment in Canadian securities slowed to $6.2 billion in February, a significant decrease from the $46.8 billion recorded in January, according to Statistics Canada.<\/a> <\/p>\n

While acquisitions of $22.6 billion in bonds continued, they were moderated by divestments of $9.2 billion in shares and $7.3 billion in money market instruments.<\/p>\n

The time to worry would be if there was a steady outflow and more capital leaving Canada, impacting bond yields and exchange rates, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see anything here that suggests there\u2019s a pattern that all of a sudden, capital is leaving Canada,\u201d says Antunes. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t panic over this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canadians moved a record amount of money on foreign assets in February, causing more money to leave the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[991,3583,4610,4611,4612,17,351,4613,772,1644,413,4614,4615,4140,4616,4617,4618,290,4619,94,1362,4620,4621,4622,3577,401,4623,4624,4625],"class_list":{"0":"post-8157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-background","11":"tag-building","12":"tag-business-in-canada","13":"tag-canada","14":"tag-canadian","15":"tag-canadian-economy","16":"tag-commerce","17":"tag-country","18":"tag-culture","19":"tag-deal","20":"tag-emblem","21":"tag-estate","22":"tag-flag-of-canada","23":"tag-invest","24":"tag-invest-in-canada","25":"tag-national","26":"tag-official","27":"tag-ontario","28":"tag-real-estate","29":"tag-sell","30":"tag-skyrise","31":"tag-skyscrapper","32":"tag-state","33":"tag-trade","34":"tag-urban","35":"tag-urbanism","36":"tag-work"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}