(Bloomberg) -- Even as Aozora Bank Ltd. shares cratered last week, demand for its stock surged among a segment of small retail investors. 

The buyers, who used Japan’s tax-free accounts called NISA, might not have been aware that the bank had predicted a loss and canceled its dividend, according to Hideyuki Suzuki, a general manager at SBI Securities Co.

“There are many novice investors in NISA,” said Suzuki. “Unintentional buying may have occurred,” in which orders for stocks with high dividend yields that had been placed in advance were automatically executed while the investors were unaware of the news.

According to the weekly NISA purchase amounts published by SBI, demand for Aozora shares rocketed to second place. The bank was not in the top 10 the previous week. The data are for the entire week and the orders could have come before the release of earnings, according to Suzuki. 

The Tokyo-based bank lost one-third of its value over a two-day period after it predicted a loss for the year. The company ratcheted up provisions for loans tied to commercial property in the US. 

“We are truly sorry that we were unable to pay out the expected dividend,” said Kei Tanigawa, president of Aozora Bank, told individual investors who had acquired the company’s shares through the NISA program at a press conference on Feb. 1.  “We feel responsible for this.”

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