Japanese stocks see second straight week of foreign inflows

Foreign investors bought Japanese stocks for a second straight week, as U.S. inflation data came in better than markets’ worst expectations and eased some concerns about broadening pricing pressures.

Overseas investors net purchased Japanese stocks worth 86.68 billion yen in the week ended April 15, after buying 613.99 billion yen in the previous week, data from Japanese exchanges showed.

Outsiders purchased 86.31 billion yen in cash equity markets and 0.37 billion yen worth of derivatives.

The March U.S. inflation data released last week largely met analysts’ expectations. Investors hoped that the worst of the post-pandemic inflation surge was behind as goods prices, excluding food and energy, dropped by the most in two years.

The Nikkei share average gained 0.4% last week after two weeks of losses. However, the Topix posted a third straight weekly drop, although a marginal decline of 0.03%.

Meanwhile, cross-border investors sold Japanese bonds worth 247.1 billion yen after purchases of 2.26 trillion yen in the previous week, finance ministry data showed.

Japanese investors sold overseas bonds of 89.2 billion yen but secured trans-border equities of 58 billion yen in their first weekly net buying since March 25.

(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)