Japan's current account swung to a deficit in June for the first time in five months, government data showed on Friday, due to a decline in earnings on overseas investments.
The deficit stood at 399.1 billion yen ($3.9 billion), against the median estimate of a 324.3 billion yen deficit in a Reuters poll of economists.
In May, the current account balance stood at a surplus of 522.8 billion yen.
"The yen has been weak for the past 18 months, that's very good. It's now fairly stable and the current level is quite nice for exporters. But we also saw a slowdown in many Japan's markets, for instance shipbuilding LNG tankers which has come down. So I think it takes time and we'll see better export figures coming through the September and December quarters," said Edwin Merner, president at Atlantis Investment Research.
"People were overly optimistic [but] this takes time ... there's a laggard effect," he added.
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The surplus in Japan's income balance fell 37.7 percent in June from a year earlier to 418.2 billion yen due to lower earnings and dividends from overseas investments, the data showed.