While the downtrend in Tokyo share prices continued unabated in recent months, a growing number of individual investors stepped up purchases over the Internet.

The continued volatility of the Tokyo market sent a broad array of stocks down to attractive price levels, enticing individual investors back into the market in search of potential gains.

Buy orders handled by Matsui Securities Co. over the Internet so far this year totaled 1.25 trillion yen, 70 billion yen more than sell orders.

While the bear market has scared many major players away, many individual investors with access to the Web have often gone online to hunt for bargains.

The Tokyo market has long been buffeted by a lack of buying support and is still dealing with the aftereffects of the burst of the late-1980s bubble economy.

With foreign investors continuing to unwind their Japanese portfolios and the nation's web of cross-shareholdings continuing to unravel, the Tokyo market remains mired at depressed price levels.

The benchmark 225-issue Nikkei average stood at 14,835.33 at the start of this month, down 4,167.53, or 21.9 percent, from the beginning of the year.

The key market gauge posted gains on 100 trading days in the first 11 months of the year, while moving lower on 128 days.

In March, one investment trust successfully established a new fund worth 1 trillion yen, setting off an investment trust boom.

A good number of stocks -- notably information-technology issues -- then forged ahead strongly, riding high on a growing wave of buying.

Mirroring a leap in investor confidence, the Nikkei average hit a 40-month high of 20,726.99 at the start of April, but the boom, orchestrated by professional fund managers, soon fizzled.

According to Tokyo Stock Exchange tabulations, buy and sell orders placed by individual investors accounted for 12.6 percent of the total transactions in October, nearly matching the 13.9 percent share claimed by institutional investors.

This can be taken to indicate that the market has become increasingly sensitive to the moves of individual investors.