Foreign selling on Bursa Malaysia last week halves to RM247.1m

The net amount sold by foreign investors last week shrank by more than half from RM531.8 million to RM247.1 million, the smallest weekly attrition so far this year.

The pace at which international investors are disposing of stocks listed on Bursa Malaysia has been slowing down for the past four consecutive weeks, MIDF Research said in its weekly fund flow report.

The research firm noted that global investors were net sellers on every single day except on Wednesday, which saw a foreign inflow worth RM71.7 million net, the first since June 29.

The local bourse ended 0.91% higher at 1,753 points that day after Federal Reserve Board chairman Jerome Powell’s reaffirmation of his upbeat assessment on the US economy.

Bursa Malaysia’s Asian peers, namely South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, also experienced a surge of inflows on the same day.

MIDF Research said foreign net selling that occurred on other days remained well below RM100 million, a level deemed moderate, while Thursday recorded the highest foreign net selling during the week at US$95.6 million net.

“Notwithstanding this, the FBM KLCI marked its nine-day winning streak on the same day supported by the rise in construction stocks following the announcement that the KL-Singapore HSR project will be deferred instead of being unilaterally cancelled,” it added.

However, MIDF Research said the reduction of outflows to RM64.6 million net on Friday coincided with the 0.26% decline in the FBM KLCI amid profit-taking activity in telecommunication stocks as they led decliners.

MIDF Research said Malaysia’s year-to-date foreign net outflow has reached RM8.31 billion or US$2.07 billion, offsetting approximately 80% of last year’s RM10.33 billion inflow.

“Nevertheless, this figure is still the second lowest outflow amongst the four Asean markets we track, standing below the Philippines which has a year-to-date outflow of US$1.31 billion net.”

The research house added that participation amongst foreign investors, retailers and local institutional funds remained upbeat as each of their average daily traded values stood above RM1 billion, RM800 million and RM2 billion, respectively.