LONDON: Overseas investors withdrew heavily out of Japanese stocks in the week ended Sept. 14 due to a stronger yen and heightened caution ahead of monetary policy decisions by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan.
Foreigners were net sellers of Japanese stocks for an eighth week in nine as they pulled out a robust 3.01 trillion yen (US$21.13 billion), the biggest since Sept. 23, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.
The yen's rally against the dollar, rising to its highest level in more than a year, fuelled worries among investors about its impact on the earnings outlook for Japanese exporters.
Japanese stocks still rose more than 2 per cent on Friday, driven by a global rally after the U.S. central bank's oversized rate reduction, an optimistic growth outlook and the Bank of Japan's decision to stand pat on its rates.
BofA said a full-scale market rally is not expected until at least November, citing the need to process several key events such as the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5, the FOMC meeting on Nov. 7, and the release of Japanese companies' first-half results also in November.
With these significant outflows last week, foreigners have divested approximately 5.34 trillion yen from Japanese stocks in the second half of this year, largely reversing around 6 trillion yen of net purchases made in the first half.
Overseas investors, meanwhile, purchased about 1.38 trillion yen worth of long-term Japanese bonds, the largest amount in four weeks, but ditched a net 65.9 billion yen worth of short-term instruments.
Simultaneously, Japanese investors acquired a massive 2.1 trillion yen in long-term foreign bonds, marking their sixth net purchase in seven weeks. However, they sold off a marginal 7.4 billion yen in short-term securities.
Conversely, they sold 87.2 billion yen worth of overseas equities, snapping their four-week-long buying streak.