Nonresidents bought a net ¥2.54tn of Japanese securities in the week of September 27 to October 3, the Ministry of Finance said on October 8. It was the first net purchase in four weeks, after net sales in each of the three weeks before it.
Tokyo Brief's earlier report covered nonresident selling in September. The weekly release adds the turn at the end of the month.
Equities did the work
Net purchases of equities and investment fund shares by nonresidents came to ¥2.19tn in the latest week. Long-term debt securities added a net ¥586bn. Short-term debt securities went the other way, with a net ¥238.5bn sold.
The swing is sharp against the preceding weeks. Nonresidents were net sellers of ¥493bn in the week of September 6 to 12, ¥3.78tn in the week to September 19, and ¥4.96tn in the week to September 26. The September 26 figure is marked as revised. Only the week of August 30 to September 5, at a net ¥859bn, was a net purchase before the latest one.
| Week (2026) | Nonresidents, net | Residents, net (foreign securities) |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 30 to Sep 5 | 8,587 | -2,528* |
| Sep 6 to Sep 12 | -4,929 | 13,983* |
| Sep 13 to Sep 19 | -37,757 | -15,135* |
| Sep 20 to Sep 26 | -49,633* | -3,250* |
| Sep 27 to Oct 3 | 25,391 | 8,210 |
Residents bought abroad again
On the other side of the ledger, Japanese residents were net buyers of foreign securities worth ¥821bn in the latest week. That followed net sales in the week to September 19 and the week to September 26, and a net purchase of ¥1.40tn in the week to September 12. Within the latest week, residents bought a net ¥1.32tn of foreign equities and investment fund shares, and sold a net ¥347.6bn of long-term debt and a net ¥156bn of short-term debt.
Reading the numbers
The ministry's statistics cover reports from designated major investors: banks, financial instruments firms, insurers, investment trust managers and asset managers named by the finance minister. They are not a count of every transaction in the market. Positive figures mean net acquisition and negative figures mean net disposition. Totals may not add because of rounding, and figures marked with an asterisk have been revised, which applies to several of the earlier weeks above.
The release gives the flows and no explanation for them. It names no cause for either the earlier selling or the latest buying.