AI Analysis: International transactions in securities, net portfolio transactions in Canadian equity and investment fund shares, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), monthly

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada's Table 36100583 tracks international net portfolio transactions in Canadian equity and investment fund shares across 9 NAICS industry sectors on a monthly basis from January 2015 to February 2026, revealing highly volatile foreign investment flows with an average monthly value of $415M CAD but extreme swings ranging from -$21,955M to +$37,343M CAD. The data shows that while foreign investors have been net buyers of Canadian securities on average, significant episodes of large-scale selling — particularly in early 2025 — underscore the sensitivity of cross-border equity flows to global market conditions. Sector-level analysis highlights meaningful differences in how industries attract or repel international investment, with Finance and Insurance, Energy and Mining, and Manufacturing emerging as dominant categories.

Key Findings

• The dataset spans 134 monthly periods (January 2015 – February 2026) with 1,474 observations across 9 NAICS industry categories, providing over 11 years of comprehensive sector-level foreign investment data.
• The average monthly net transaction value across all industries was $415M CAD, but the median of $91.5M and a standard deviation of $5,611M CAD reveal a heavily skewed distribution driven by extreme outlier events.
• The single largest net inflow occurred in February 2017 at $37,343M CAD (Shares), while the largest net outflow was -$21,955M CAD in February 2025, indicating a major episode of foreign investor selling in Canadian equities.
• 26 months (out of 134) were flagged as statistical outliers with Z-scores exceeding 2 in the All Industries series, suggesting that extreme capital flow events — likely tied to global market shocks — are a recurring feature of this dataset.
• The interquartile range spans from -$756.5M (Q1) to +$992.5M (Q3), meaning the middle 50% of monthly transactions straddle both net buying and net selling, reflecting the inherently two-directional nature of international portfolio flows.
• Three instrument types are tracked — total Canadian equity and investment fund shares, Shares, and Investment fund shares — enabling distinction between direct equity investment and fund-based foreign participation in Canadian markets.
• Correlation analysis across the 9 NAICS sectors reveals that some industries move in tandem (suggesting shared sensitivity to common economic drivers such as commodity prices or global risk sentiment), while others exhibit inverse relationships, offering potential diversification signals for analysts monitoring foreign capital flows.