FOREIGN investors continued to net sell Malaysian equities for the eighth consecutive week at -RM443.8 mil last week amid a shortened trading week on Bursa Malaysia in conjunction with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s Birthday celebration last Monday (June 5).
This frequency of weekly net selling was last seen in May 2021 may have been exacerbated by the weak April 2023 industrial production index (IPI) numbers, according to MIDF Research.
“Similar to the week before, foreigners net sold every day last week and have been net selling for nine consecutive trading days,” observed the research house in its weekly fund flow report.
“They net sold -RM99.1 mil on Tuesday (June 6), -RM98.2 mil on Wednesday (June 7), -RM159.9 mi on Thursday (June 8) and -RM86.7 mil on Friday (June 9).”
The top three sectors that saw net foreign inflows last week were transportation & logistics (RM37.0 mil), construction (RM12.2 mil) and technology (RM300,000) while the sectors with the highest outflows were financial services (-RM102.5 mil), consumer products & services (-RM78.2 mil) and industrials (-RM65.3 mil).
Year-to-date (YTD), foreigners have net sold Malaysian equities for 17 out of 23 weeks with a total outflow of -RM3.40 bil.
On the contrary, local institutional investors remained net buyers of Malaysian stocks with a total of RM333.7 mil. They net bought every trading session of the week with the bulk of it on Thursday (June 8) and Friday (June 9) at RM151.0 mil and RM100.0 mil respectively. YTD, they have been net buyers for 17 of 23 weeks with a total of RM3.12 bil.
Meanwhile, local retailers continued their net buying activities for the third consecutive week at RM110.2 mil. They only net sold -RM13.3 mil on Friday (June 9) but were net buyers for the other trading days. YTD, retailers have been net buyers for 12 out of 23 weeks with a total of RM283.6 mil.
In terms of participation, there was a decline in average daily trading volume (ADTV) across the board among retail investors (-14.9%), local institutions (-19.9%) and foreign investors (-55.2%).
In comparison with another four Southeast Asian markets tracked by MIDF Research last week, only Thailand posted a net inflow of foreign funds with US$24.1 mil while Malaysia had the highest net outflow with -US$96.2 mil followed by Vietnam (-US$20.5 mil), Indonesia (-US$13.9 mil) and the Philippines (-US$8.4 mil).
The top three stocks with the highest net money inflow from foreign investors last week were Malayan Banking Bhd (RM65.3 mil), YTL Corp Bhd (RM25.4 mil) and Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (RM14.0 mil). – June 12, 2023
