Foreign Investors' Net Selling Widens to ¥376.3bn as Corporates Set an All-Time Buyback Record of ¥1.07tn (Week of Aug 3-7, 2026)A · FULL TRANSLATION
- In the week of Aug 3-7, 2026, foreign investors were net sellers of ¥376.3bn on the TSE Prime market, widening from the ¥258.7bn net selling of the July 13-17 week covered in our previous edition.
- Individuals flipped from ¥372.9bn net buying to ¥132.6bn net selling; trust banks moved the other way, lifting net buying from ¥61.7bn to ¥167.8bn.
- Business corporations bought a net ¥1,067.6bn — an all-time Prime record, beating the ¥712.1bn of the fourth week of May 2025. Across both markets the ¥1,088.3bn net buy also broke the ¥761.2bn record set in the first week of December 2015.
- Institutions as a whole bought a net ¥1,018.0bn, also a Prime record (previous high ¥834.8bn, first week of March 2025). Corporate buybacks absorbed simultaneous selling from foreigners, individuals and investment trusts.
- Foreign investors accounted for 68.0% of brokerage trading value, up from 66.6% in the previous edition — they still set the price on Japanese equities.
Start with the link to the previous edition. Our last piece covered the week of July 13-17: foreigners net sold ¥258.7bn while individuals net bought ¥372.9bn — a clean counter-trade. This edition covers August 3-7: foreigners net sold ¥376.3bn, ¥117.6bn more than the previous edition and a 45.5% widening, while individuals flipped from ¥372.9bn of buying to ¥132.6bn of selling, a ¥505.5bn swing. Investment trusts sold a net ¥77.7bn, almost unchanged from ¥75.7bn. Trust banks bought a net ¥167.8bn against ¥61.7bn. (We did not publish for the last two weeks of July; the preceding week of July 27-31, carried in the same PDF, showed foreigners selling ¥490.3bn, individuals ¥392.8bn and trust banks ¥318.4bn.)
The main actor sits outside those four categories. Business corporations bought a net ¥1,067.6bn, the highest on record for the Prime market, half again above the previous ¥712.1bn peak of late May 2025; their gross purchases of ¥1,728.5bn were also a record. Across the Prime and Standard markets combined, the ¥1,088.3bn net buy erased a record that had stood since the first week of December 2015 (¥761.2bn). Corporate buying here is essentially share buybacks, and the number says one thing: buyback resolutions passed at June AGMs were executed in bulk in early August, making companies themselves the largest buyer in the market.
The arithmetic explains the week. Brokerage trading as a whole was a net ¥502.2bn buy: institutions +¥1,018.0bn (also a record), foreigners -¥376.3bn, individuals -¥132.6bn, securities firms -¥6.9bn. The roughly ¥590bn sold simultaneously by foreigners, individuals and investment trusts was absorbed by corporate buyback orders. Proprietary trading swung to a net ¥446.9bn sale from ¥937.8bn of buying the week before, leaving the overall total at just ¥55.3bn of net buying. The index looks calm; the ownership underneath rotated.
Shares of turnover tell a separate story. Foreigners sold, yet their share of brokerage trading value rose to 68.0% from 66.6% in the previous edition; individuals fell to 25.6% from 28.6% and institutions rose to 6.0% from 4.5%. Corporates wrote the record; foreigners still own the tape.
This is a weekly flash release. The JPX table carries no year-earlier or 2019 comparison, so no year-on-year or pre-pandemic comparison is made here; the long-run benchmark used instead is the all-time-high table JPX publishes alongside it.
Translated from the Japan Exchange Group release "Trading Value of Stocks in TSE Prime Market by Investor Type" for the first week of August 2026 (Aug 3-7) and the accompanying "Record of Trading by Investor Type" published Aug 14, 2026.
[TSE Prime, value, thousands of yen] Total trading value (sales plus purchases): 120,787,547,188. Proprietary trading accounted for 9.3% and brokerage trading for 89.9%.
Balances for the week of Aug 3-7: proprietary -446,869,746 (net sale); brokerage +502,178,569 (net purchase); total +55,308,823 (net purchase).
Brokerage detail: institutions +1,018,019,393; individuals -132,647,183; foreigners -376,297,178; securities companies -6,896,463.
Institutions detail: investment trusts -77,716,036; business corporations +1,067,616,517; other corporations -42,636,800; financial institutions +70,755,712. Within financial institutions: life and non-life insurers -35,707,651; city and regional banks -23,604,490; trust banks +167,830,064; other financials -37,762,211.
Previous week (Jul 27-31): proprietary +937,843,795; brokerage -903,441,228; total +34,402,567; institutions -5,458,371; individuals -392,827,828; foreigners -490,337,149; investment trusts +4,910,617; business corporations +408,245,922; trust banks -318,440,577.
[Record of Trading by Investor Type, published Aug 14, 2026, covering the first week of August 2026] Standard market, share volume (thousand shares): proprietary net buying 20,346 (previous high 18,889, first week of June 2025); brokerage net selling -31,642 (previous high -19,816, third week of November 2025). Prime market, value (thousand yen): institutions net buying 1,018,019,393 (previous high 834,835,070, first week of March 2025); business corporations gross purchases 1,728,475,825 (previous high 1,090,291,374, second week of May 2026); business corporations net buying 1,067,616,517 (previous high 712,068,889, fourth week of May 2025). Standard market, value: institutions gross purchases 51,918,563; institutions net buying 20,525,009; business corporations gross purchases 31,678,494; business corporations net buying 19,340,482. Both markets combined, value: institutions net buying 1,038,886,929 (previous high 830,842,591, first week of March 2025); business corporations gross purchases 1,765,656,484 (previous high 1,456,209,357, third week of February 1989); business corporations net buying 1,088,257,994 (previous high 761,220,647, first week of December 2015).
[Notes to the original table] 1. Survey results from trading participants with capital of at least 3 billion yen. 2. Domestic common stocks only, excluding preferred shares. 3. Including ToSTNeT trades. 4. "-" denotes net sales. 5. Proprietary and brokerage ratios are shares of the grand total; each investor category's ratio is its share of brokerage trading.