Japan Shed Foreign Bonds Last Week

The latest round of weekly international security flow data revealed that Japanese investors upped their net sales of foreign bonds last week, recording the largest round of net weekly sales observed since late March into early April in the process. This represented a fifth consecutive week of net selling of foreign paper for Japanese investors.

• Elsewhere, foreign investors were net buyers of Japanese bonds after recording a record round of net sales in the previous week (when they were seemingly keen to test the BoJ’s resolve re: protecting its current YCC settings). This broke a streak of two weeks of net selling, although the 4-week rolling sum of the measure remains in heavy selling territory.
• Japanese investor flows surrounding foreign equities were virtually neutral in net terms.
• Meanwhile, foreign investors recorded sales of Japanese equities for a fourth week in five, although the pace moderated a touch vs. the previous week.