Overseas investors sold a net 334 billion yen ($3.07 billion) worth of local stocks last week, according to data from Japanese stock exchanges.

(Graphic: Foreign flows into Japanese stocks - )

They sold 268.52 billion yen worth of derivatives and 65.47 billion yen in cash markets last week.

Last week, Japanese equities indexes ? the Nikkei index <.N225> and the Topix index ? both plummeted more than 8%, in their biggest weekly drop in three weeks.

Data released last week showed factory activity in Japan, the United States and some major economies contracted at the fastest pace in about a decade.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this week declared a long-awaited emergency to fight coronavirus infections in major population centres and rolled out a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package to soften the economic blow.

However, healthcare and chemicals companies such as Denka Co Ltd, Fujifilm Holdings Corp gained last week on expectations of higher profits as researchers race to find medicines to treat COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Japanese investors purchased a net 568.6 billion yen worth of overseas equities last week, which marked their sixth weekly net purchase, finance ministry data showed.

(Graphic: Japanese investments in stocks abroad - )

(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy; editing by Uttaresh.V)