Foreign investors turned net sellers of Japanese stocks last week, adding to mounting selling pressure.

Nonresidents sold 27.8 billion yen more than they bought on the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya bourses in a turnaround from net purchases of 98.1 billion yen the previous week -- their first net purchases in two weeks, according to a weekly industry report.

Most major domestic players also jumped on the selling bandwagon amid concern over economic and corporate earnings prospects.

With the April-September fiscal first half drawing to a close, banking institutions and corporate investors stepped up sales to unwind their cross-shareholding ties.

Mark-to-market accounting rules are being newly applied on cross-held shares from the current business year, prompting banks to unload their shareholdings before closing their ledgers next month.

Long-term credit banks, city banks and regional banks remained net sellers for the seventh straight week, with their selling excess at 69.8 billion yen, compared with 104 billion yen the previous week.

Corporate investors were net sellers for the eighth consecutive week, with net sales of 13.2 billion yen, compared with 28.3 billion yen the week before.

With a broad array of shares falling to attractive price levels, bargain-hunting individual investors and investment trust funds were the main net buyers.

Individual investors' margin purchases totaled 28.6 billion yen, a turnaround from net sales of 41.6 billion yen the previous week.

Their net cash purchases totaled 9.9 billion yen, against net sales of 73 billion yen.

Investment trust funds logged 25.9 billion yen in net purchases, down from 41.6 billion yen.