Japanese investors were big buyers of foreign equities in July

(Reuters) – Japanese investors purchased heavily in foreign equities in July, as global stocks rebounded last month on the back of positive earnings and hopes of less aggressive monetary tightening measures from the U.S. Federal Reserves.

According to data from Japan’s Ministry of Finance, Japanese investors accumulated a net 1.85 trillion yen worth of overseas equities in July, the biggest since at least 2005.

Graphic: Japanese investments in overseas assets, https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/znpnerzkyvl/Japanese%20investments%20in%20overseas%20assets.jpg U.S. equities gained 9.1% in the last month, boosted by postive forecasts from Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc, which showed confidence in companies ability to weather an economic downturn.

The overseas equity buying was led by investment trusts, which purchased 755.4 billion yen, while trust banks bought 748.6 billion yen.

According to Refinitiv data, 66% of the MSCI World index constituents have beaten analysts’ forecasts for their net income.

Meanwhile, due to a decline in U.S. yields, Japanese investors made net sales of 2.54 trillion yen worth of foreign bonds in July, making it a sixth straight month of net sales.

In June, domestic investors sold 3.88 trillion-yen worth of U.S. bonds and 926.8 billion-yen worth of European bonds, data from the Bank of Japan showed.

(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bengaluru; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)