IN a matter of one week, foreign investors have switched from being net buyers in Bursa Malaysia to becoming net sellers with an outflow amounting to -RM288.13 mil for the week of Jan 18-22.
To re-cap, foreign funds were instrumental in mopping up RM326.06 mil worth of stocks in the local bourse for the week of Jan 11-15.
As market re-opened on Monday last week (Jan 18), foreign investors sold -RM57.15 mil net of local equities, with retailers and local institutions as net buyers to the tune of RM15.97 mil and RM41.18 mil respectively, according to MIDF Research.
“Foreign investors were net sellers every day during last week,” the research house pointed out in its weekly fund flow report. “This came amid rising cases and selective lockdowns announced for several states, including several major economic centres.”
The largest foreign outflow was recorded on Thursday (Jan 21) at -RM117.11 mil while the smallest outflow was on Wednesday (Jan 20) at -RM8.87 mil.
On the contrary, retailers were net buyers every day for last week. The largest net buying was recorded on Thursday (Jan 21) at RM172.95 mil with the smallest net purchase on Friday (Jan 22) at RM71.17 mil.
Similar to foreign investor behaviour, local institutions also recorded negative flow last week.
Their net selling activities were recorded to the tune of -RM138.03 mil with the biggest net outflow on Tuesday (Jan 19) at -RM72.59 mil.
“Since the beginning of 2021, cumulatively, retailers are the only net buyers of our equity market to the tune of RM1.16 bil,” noted MIDF Research. “Local institutions and foreign investors are net sellers to the tune of -RM862.97 mil and -RM299.09 mil respectively.”
In comparison to another three Southeast Asian markets that tracked by the research house last week, Indonesia was the only country to record foreign net inflow with US$786.49 mil while Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia incurred net outflow of US$119.20 mil, US$100.35 mil and US$71.33 mil respectively.
In terms of participation, retail investors recorded a weekly decrease of -9.49% in average daily trade value (ADTV) while foreign investors and local institutions experienced ADTV declines of -23.16% and -7.66% respectively.
The top three stocks with the highest net money inflow last week were Public Bank Bhd (RM10.79 mil), Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd (RM6.15 mil) and Telekom Malaysia Bhd (RM4.61 mil). – Jan 25, 2021
