WITH 2020 almost coming to a close, it looks quite certain that Bursa Malaysia owes it to retailers for driving business into the local bourse.
Year-to-date (till Dec 18), retailers had bought to the tune of RM13.61 bil, an amount that surpassed even local institutions which came in second biggest at RM10.87 bil, according to MIDF Research’s latest weekly fund flow report.
Both entities keep Bursa Malaysia afloat given that foreign investors have disappointingly emerged net sellers to the sum of -RM25 bil worth of equities as of Dec 18.
On the more immediate term, foreign investors continued to be net sellers for the week of Dec 14-18 with an outflow amounting to -RM178.8 mil.
“As market reopened last Monday (Dec 14), foreign investors sold -RM81.6 mil net of local equities with retailers and local institutions being net buyers and net sellers to the tune of RM148.6 mil and -RM67.72 mil respectively,” noted the research house.
Nevertheless, the foreigners turned net buyers on Wednesday (Dec 16) and Thursday (Dec 17) with RM142.7 mil and RM9.7 mil respectively following the passing of the Budget 2021 at its third reading.
“However, this net buying was short-lived as it turned net selling again on Friday (Dec 18) amounting to -RM210.5 mil, probably on profit taking activities on the recent rally of the market,” observed MIDF Research.
For last week, retailers were active buyers on every day of the week. The largest net inflow was on Monday (Dec 14) and smallest on Thursday (Dec 17) to the tune of RM148.5 mil and RM13.5 mil respectively.
“This far, December saw retailers as ardent net buyers with only one day where retailers were net sellers,” the research house pointed out.
On the contrary, the market saw local institutions as net sellers every day during the week except on Friday (Dec 18). The largest net selling was recorded on Wednesday (Dec 16) at -RM168.9 mil while the only buying was on Friday at RM67.72 mil.
In comparison to another three Southeast Asian markets tracked by MIDF Research last week, Malaysia recorded the least foreign net outflow at -US$44.25 mil while Thailand experienced the biggest outflow (-US$289.48 mil), followed by the Philippines (-US$78.62 mil) and Indonesia (-US$60.93 mil).
In terms of participation, the retail investors recorded a weekly decrease of -25.0% in average daily trade value (ADTV) while the foreign investor experienced increase of ADTV of -17.7% and local institution at ADTV of 14.0%.
The top three stocks with the highest net money inflow last week were Tenaga Nasional Bhd (RM5.73 mil) followed by Top Glove Corp Bhd (RM5.65 mil) and Press Metal Aluminium Holdings Bhd (RM4.55 mil). – Dec 21, 2020
