Foreigners Sold Net Y448.7B Japan Stocks Last Week

The foreign flight from Japan's stock market continued last week, Ministry of Finance data showed Thursday. Foreign investors sold Y448.7 billion of Japanese shares on a net basis during the week of Jan. 27-Feb. 2, MOF's weekly portfolio flow data showed. It marked the fifth straight week of net stock sales, and the 11th such week out of the last 13. The scale of net selling was smaller than the previous week's Y559.0 billion, but larger than any other week since mid-December, as the Nikkei 225 Stock Average continued to fall sharply. Foreigners also sold a net Y12.1 billion of Japanese bonds last week. They were net buyers in the Japanese money markets for the first time since New Year's week, taking a net Y273.0 billion of short-term money-market instruments. Japanese investors, meanwhile, were net buyers of foreign securities, purchasing a net Y113.2 billion of foreign shares and a net Y487.3 billion of foreign bonds.