(Reuters) – Japanese stocks witnessed robust selling by foreign investors last week, as concerns about elevated U.S. interest rates and rising Treasury yields dampened risk appetite.
Data from Japanese exchanges showed foreign investors exited a net 1.64 trillion yen ($11.00 billion) of stocks in the week ended Sept.
29, posting the biggest weekly net selling since March 17.
They sold about 1.56 trillion yen of derivatives and pulled out 77.62 billion yen from cash equities.
Last week the Topix index dropped 2.3%, its biggest weekly loss since Aug.
18, while the Nikkei shed about 1.7%, posting a second successive week of decline.
Foreign investors have still poured about 5.51 trillion yen into Japanese shares so far this year, compared with about 4.63 trillion yen worth of net selling last year.
Overseas investors, meanwhile, secured a marginal $25.8 billion yen of long-term Japanese bonds last week after about $2.02 trillion yen of net selling in the previous week, data from Japan’s Ministry of Finance showed.
They, however, withdrew about 1.05 trillion yen out of short-term debt securities, extending outflows into a third straight week.
In the same period, Japanese investors poured about 721 million yen into foreign stocks, marking their biggest weekly net purchase in four weeks.
Japanese investors also purchased about 297.1 billion yen of long-term overseas bonds when compared with about 541.6 billion yen of net disposals in the previous week.
They, however, sold about 39 billion yen of short-term debt instruments.
($1 = 149.0800 yen)
(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bengaluru; editing by Eileen Soreng)
