April 4 (Reuters) - Foreign investors pulled more than a

trillion yen out of Japanese stocks last week, as some stocks

went ex-dividend and expectations of currency market

intervention by the Bank of Japan led to profit booking after a

recent rally.

They offloaded a net 1.18 trillion yen worth of stocks

during the week to March 29 - their largest weekly net disposal

since Sept. 29, 2023, data from stock exchanges showed.

Overseas investors sold a net 967.32 billion yen of

derivative contracts, marking the largest weekly net selling in

nine weeks. They also pulled about 213 million yen out of cash

equities.

Last week, the Nikkei shed about 1.3% following

5.63% weekly gains and a fresh life high of 41087.75 in the

prior week.

U.S. banks Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan had also warned last

week that Japan's top-performing stocks were at risk of a

sell-off because of overcrowded long positions in large

companies.

Meanwhile, foreigners purchased long-term Japanese bonds of

842.2 billion yen on a net basis last week, in contrast to a

sharp 3.89 trillion yen worth of net selling, a week ago, data

from the Ministry of Finance showed.

Japanese short-term debt instruments, meanwhile, witnessed

2.78 trillion yen worth of foreign outflows, the biggest weekly

net selling since December 29.

Japanese investors, meanwhile, sold a net 1.66 trillion yen

of long-term foreign bonds, the most in a week since Oct 2022

while exiting about 25.1 billion yen of short-term debt

securities.

They also withdrew 233.6 billion yen out of overseas

equities, posting a fourth weekly net selling in five weeks.