Foreigners bought $7.21b of Japanese futures on weekly basis

TOKYO, Nov 8 (Reuters): Foreign investors bought a likely record amount of Japanese futures last week, Nomura Securities said on Friday, as buyers took heart from strong corporate earnings and upbeat industrial data.
Foreigners, who were net sellers in Japanese futures for the past five weeks, bought a total of 831.7 billion yen ($7.21 billion) worth of Japanese futures during Oct. 27-31, according to data provided by the Osaka Exchange.
The data includes the Nikkei futures, the Nikkei mini futures, the Topix futures and Topix mini futures. "Our data only dates back to 2004, and it's the biggest in ten years for sure, and the fact that the Nikkei mini futures accounts for a large portion of the figure, it is highly likely that it's a record high," said Jun Yunoki, a strategist at Nomura Securities.
The Nikkei 225 mini futures, which started trading in 2006, accounted for 20 per cent of the buying. The Osaka bourse, which compiles the raw data, said it could not confirm that it was the record amount.
According to Nomura, a total of 305 companies of Topix 500 companies reported an average of 16.8 per cent rise on the year in their pretax profits for the July-September quarter. Last week, Japan's industrial output rose at the fastest pace in eight months in September.