Nov 24 (Reuters) - Japanese stocks witnessed massive foreign inflows in the week ended Nov. 17, underpinned by strong corporate earnings and as investors tempered some of their initial enthusiasm about the prospect of a series of U.S. interest rate cuts.

Data from Japanese exchanges showed foreign investors secured a net 1.03 trillion yen ($6.88 billion) of stocks last week, after about 1.13 trillion yen of net purchases in the prior week.

Overseas investors purchased about 667.92 billion yen worth of derivatives and about 362.96 billion yen worth of cash equities.

Minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting showed that policymakers pledged to "proceed carefully", which traders did not interpret as new information, and also contained no confirmation that policymakers had ruled out more rate hikes.

Shares of Idemitsu Kosan surged 22.6% last week after the Japanese refiner raised its full-year profit forecast. Lender Mizuho Financial Group also revised up its income forecast and added 3.5% for the week.

Last week, Japanese equities extended their winning streak into a third straight week as the Nikkei jumped 3.12%, while the broader Topix index climbed about 2.33%.

Japanese stocks saw a net 6.99 trillion yen of foreign capital so far this year, compared with about 3.35 trillion yen of net outflows in the year-ago period.

Overseas investors poured about 2.48 trillion yen into Japanese bonds, posting their most substantial weekly net purchase in 10 weeks. They invested 2.06 trillion yen in short-term and 422.6 billion yen in long-term Japanese debt securities, on a net basis.

Japanese investors, meanwhile, purchased about 246.6 billion yen of foreign bonds during the week, after four weeks of net selling in a row. They added a net 2.5 billion yen of long-term, and 244.1 billion yen of short-term overseas bonds in their portfolio.

They were also net buyers in foreign equities last week with about 120.5 billion worth of purchases.

($1 = 149.6200 yen)

(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)