Japanese investors were net buyers of foreign bonds for a fifth successive week ended Aug. 31, as a stronger yen boosted their purchasing power and as there was no recurrence of the extreme volatility witnessed at the start of the month.

They acquired long-term overseas bonds of a robust 1.64 trillion yen ($11.41 billion) following 1.56 trillion yen worth of net purchases in the prior week, data from the Ministry of Finance showed. Japanese investors, however, sold about 275.5 billion yen worth of short-term debt instruments.

An interest rate hike by the Bank of Japan on July 31 pushed the yen to an eight-month high of around 141.66 per dollar on Aug. 5. The level has since acted as strong resistance, boosting hopes of a trend reversal amid expectations that the BOJ might take longer than anticipated to consider its next rate hike.

Japanese investors also snapped up a net 384.7 billion yen worth of foreign equities, their sixth weekly net purchase in seven weeks.

Concurrently, Japanese debt markets witnessed overseas capital outflow worth 1.4 trillion yen from long-term local bonds, on expectations that the BOJ would raise interest rates again this year.

Short-term instruments also had 1.41 trillion yen in foreign net sales for the third straight week.

Cross-border investors also offloaded Japanese stocks of a net 824.4 billion yen, marking the biggest weekly outflow since March 23, as they sought better returns from U.S. and European equities, which have performed well in recent weeks.

Foreigners offloaded a net 245.13 billion yen worth of equities in the cash market in the week to Aug. 30, extending net selling into a second successive week, data from exchanges showed. They however, purchased about 10.48 billion yen worth of derivative contracts. ($1 = 143.7800 yen)

(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bengaluru; Editing by Eileen Soreng and Muralikumar Anantharaman)