After several strong foreign capital inflows into Japanese stocks in the preceding weeks, there was a minor outflow last week.

Exchange data shows that foreign investors pulled out a net 2.83 billion yen (about $19 million) from Japanese stocks in the holiday-shortened week that ended on February 22. This was the first weekly sale in three weeks for these investors.

They stopped a seven-week purchasing streak in cash equity with net withdrawals of roughly 78.65 billion yen. On the other hand, they continued to buy futures contracts worth roughly 75.82 billion yen.

Tuesday saw the Nikkei share average reach a new high of 39,426.29, exceeding the height of the 1989 bubble thanks to a tech boom, corporate governance changes, and a declining value of the yen.

For the fourth week in a row, both the Nikkei and the larger Topix index were rising.
Last week, the Nikkei gained 1.6% while the larger Topix index gained 1.37%.

For the second consecutive week, foreign investors continued to be net sellers in the Japanese debt market, according to data released by the Ministry of Finance.

After net disposals of 1.83 trillion yen and 521 billion yen, respectively, the week before, they withdrew roughly 642.1 billion yen and 19 billion yen, respectively, from short- and long-term bonds.

Japanese investors extended net selling into a second consecutive week at the same time, selling long-term foreign debt instruments for a net total of 257 billion yen.

They did, however, buy short-term instruments totaling roughly 14.7 billion yen.

For the third consecutive week, Japanese investors continued to be net purchasers of foreign stocks, acquiring stocks valued at roughly 225.9 billion yen on a net basis.

(Adapted from USNews.com)

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