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July marked the fourth time in five months that foreign investors reduced their holdings of Canadian securities, which dropped by $1.2 billion during the month. Canadian investors simultaneously ramped up their offshore investing, pushing monthly portfolio outflows to their high for the year, Statistics Canada reports.

Foreign investors bought Canadian bonds and stocks during the month, but reduced their holdings of money market instruments.

“A divestment of corporate paper accounted for the bulk of the reduction in the month,” StatsCan notes.

At the same time, Canadian investors added $12.5 billion worth of foreign securities in July. StatsCan says that this represents the largest investment in foreign securities since October 2018.

Canadian investors added $6.6 billion of foreign debt securities in July, and $5.9 billion in equities.

With the reduction in foreign holdings of Canadian securities, and continued foreign investment by Canadian investors, there was a net outflow of $13.6 billion from the Canadian economy in July.

StatsCan notes that this represents the largest net monthly outflow so far in 2019.