A stronger yen, which traded near a six-month high against the dollar last week, also boosted their purchasing power.

They bought ¥1.8 trillion (US$12.26 billion) worth of foreign stocks during the week, far exceeding the previous weekly record of ¥1.29 trillion worth of net purchases in August 2024, data from Japan’s finance ministry showed.

Japan’s Nikkei index, which had dropped as much as 13.81% after Trump announced sweeping import duties on April 2, rebounded 8.4% today after he declared a tariff pause for several countries, including Japan.

The MSCI World Index jumped 5.7% yesterday, paring some of its 14.7% slide since April 2.

Japanese investors, however, sold long-term foreign bonds of ¥2.57 trillion in their largest weekly net disposal since Nov 2 as bond yields fell last week.

Meanwhile, Japanese stocks saw a net ¥1.81 trillion worth of foreign inflows last week as overseas investors broke a nine-weeks-long selling trend in which they pulled a net ¥6.47 trillion from Japanese equity markets.

Foreigners also snapped up long-term Japanese bonds and short-term bills of ¥2.79 trillion and ¥2.11 trillion, respectively last week, following two weeks of net selling.