(Reuters) -Foreign investors were net sellers of Japanese stocks in the week to August 20, for the first time in nine weeks, as they turned cautious, moving to lock in profits after a selloff in technology stocks stalled a market rally.

They divested a net 496.8 billion yen ($3.37 billion) worth of Japanese stocks last week, marking their first weekly net sales since June 21, data from Japan's Ministry of Finance showed on Thursday.

The Nikkei 225 Index fell 1.72% last week, after hitting a record high of 43,876.42 earlier in the week.

Technology investor SoftBank Group, which jumped as much as 43.9% this month to a record high of 16,995 yen early last week, later faced heavy selling and ended the week down 9.9%. Chip-testing equipment maker Advantest also lost 4.7% over the week.

Japanese long-term bonds also saw a weekly net foreign outflow of 106 billion yen as foreigners ended two weeks buying streak. They also sold short-term bills of a net 36.1 billion yen.

Japanese investors, meanwhile, withdrew a net 306.1 billion yen from foreign stocks last week, the third weekly net sales in four weeks.

International long-term bonds also lost a net 167.2 billion yen worth of Japanese investments last week as Japanese investors extended net sales into a second successive week.

($1 = 147.3300 yen)