Kioxia's Massive Buyback Drives Japanese Corporate Net Buying to Record High

According to the Japan Exchange Group (JPX), Japanese corporate net buying in the first week of August (3rd to 7th) reached 1.8825799 billion yen, surpassing the previous record of 761.2 billion yen set in the first week of December 2015. This historic high was driven primarily by Kioxia Holdings' large-scale share buyback. To improve capital efficiency and enhance shareholder returns, Kioxia announced on July 31st a share buyback framework with an upper limit of 800 billion yen. Although the original acquisition period was until the end of October, Kioxia actually completed approximately 800 billion yen in buybacks in just one week, from August 3rd to 10th. Shota Sando, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Intelligence Lab, noted that such a large-scale buyback in such a short period of time is 'unprecedented.' However, despite this massive buying, Kioxia's stock price only rose slightly by 2.6% to 2.7% that week, with analysts pointing out that market selling pressure remains strong. While Kioxia's stock price has fallen by about half from its peak in June this year, its year-to-date cumulative gain still exceeds 400%. In other investment sectors, foreign investors continued to sell in the cash market for two consecutive weeks, amounting to 382.7 billion yen. Individual investors also sold for three consecutive weeks, totaling approximately 156.6 billion yen. However, when including the futures market, foreign investors overall turned to net buying. Supported by strong corporate buying, the Nikkei average closed the week with a gain of 1,244.69 points, up approximately 1.9%.