Japanese investors snap up overseas equities despite global sell-off

April 10 (Reuters) - Japanese investors made record purchases of foreign equities in the week to April 5, turning to overseas markets for bargains as domestic shares came under pressure from aggressive tariff measures announced by U.S. President Donald Trump.

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 yen ($12.26 billion) worth of foreign stocks during the week, far exceeding the previous weekly record of 1.29 trillion yen worth of net purchases in August 2024, data from Japan's Ministry of Finance showed.

Japan's Nikkei index .N225, which had dropped as much as 13.81% after Trump announced sweeping import duties on April 2, rebounded 8.4% on Thursday after he declared a tariff pause for several countries, including Japan.

The MSCI World Index .MIWD00000PUS jumped 5.7% on Wednesday, paring some of its 14.7% slide since April 2.

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

Meanwhile, Japanese stocks saw a net 1.81 trillion yen 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 yen from Japanese equity markets.

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

($1 = 146.8300 yen)