Portfolio investment

Portfolio investment is considered to include securities transactions not belonging to direct investment and reserve assets. Portfolio investment refers to securities transactions in which the ownership or voting power after the investment remains below 10%. As securities transactions are valued at market prices, capital gains realised in connection with a change of ownership are reflected in valuation adjustments between stocks and flows.

Securities traded are divided into equity and debt securities. Equity securities are shares, participations and mutual fund shares. Debt securities include bonds and money market paper.

Income generated from mutual funds' share holdings are divided into profits (dividends) and reinvested earnings. Reinvested earnings are included in the security investments in the financial account while profits (dividends) are included in the primary income in the current account.

Data on security investments are collected in the inquiry on foreign financial assets and liabilities and from data collections carried out by the Bank of Finland. The Bank of Finland collects data by security and in their classification use is made of the European Central Bank's centralised database on securities, which contains basic data on nearly all securities under active trading globally.