Foreign Buying of Japanese Stocks Hits Highest Since June

Foreign investors bought a net 956 billion yen ($6.5 billion) of Japanese stocks last week, their biggest purchase since early June, data from the Tokyo Stock Exchange showed on Thursday.

International demand has helped Japanese shares extend their outperformance versus other major equity markets into the new year. The blue-chip Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 6.6% last week, the biggest weekly gain since March 2022, adding to an annual advance of 28%. Retail Japanese investors sold into the rally, offloading 1.07 trillion yen of cash equities in the same week, the biggest since November 2013.