AFTER two consecutive weeks of net buying, foreign funds left the domestic market last week by net selling -RM338.7 mil worth of Malaysian equities.
Foreign investors net sold their stock holdings every trading day of last week except on Tuesday (Feb 28) which saw an inflow of RM9.0 mil. Year-to-date (YTD), foreign investors have net sold -RM685.7 mil of equities from Bursa Malaysia.
“The highest amount of net outflow occurred on Monday (Feb 27) to the tune of -RM178.6 mil while Wednesday (March 1) and Thursday (March 2) saw the second and third highest net selling during the week with to -RM84.2 mil and -RM73.8 mil respectively,” MIDF Research pointed out in its weekly fund flow report.
Sector wise, energy (RM33.5 mil), construction (RM24.8 mil) and REITs (RM2.5 mil) posted the highest net foreign inflows last week, while financials (-RM121.0 mil), industrials (-RM80.0 mil) and healthcare (-RM74.3 mil) were sectors that saw most net foreign outflows.
On the contrary, local institutions emerged net buyers last week with total net inflows worth RM296.0 mil.
Only Tuesday recorded a net outflow of -RM78.3 mil while the rest of the week recorded inflows. The heaviest net inflows were seen on Friday (Feb 3) at RM168.9 mil followed by Monday (Feb 27) at RM132.1 mil. YTD, local institutions have net bought RM736.8 mil.
Similarly, local retailers were net buyers last week to the tune of RM42.7 mil. Only Wednesday (March 1) saw net outflows of -RM55.1 mil. YTD, local retailers are net sellers at -RM51.1 mil.
In terms of participation, there was an increase in average daily trading volume (ADTV) among local institutions (+0.3%) and foreign investors (+42.0%) in contrast to local retailers (-6.3%).
In comparison with another four Southeast Asian markets tracked by MIDF Research last week, only Indonesia posted foreign fund inflow at US$176.9 mil while Thailand recorded the highest net outflow at US$290.4 mil followed by the Philippines (US$126.5 mil), Malaysia (US$75.7 mil) and Vietnam (US$51.3 mil).
The top three stocks with the highest net money inflow from foreign investors last week were Bumi Armada Bhd (RM23.7 mil), Gamuda Bhd (RM21.5 mil) and Genting Bhd (RM21.3 mil). – March 6, 2023
