Foreign selling on Bursa continues into 5th week

PETALING JAYA: Foreign investors sold RM1.27 billion net on Bursa last week, stretching foreign selling to five weeks, the longest selling binge recorded so far this year, said MIDF Research.
Preliminary data from Bursa, which excludes off market deals, showed that the net amount sold by foreign investors last week was higher than the RM892.4 million net disposed in the week before.
“With foreign selling on every single day of the week, the selling streak has extended to 19 days, the longest since the 21-day binge in May to June 2015.
“Monday’s attrition stood at RM216.5 million, a level which is normal at this juncture. However, foreign funds pulled out RM609.2 million net on Wednesday, the highest in a day since May 15 after Tuesday’s break following the cancellation of the MRT3 project,” it said in its fund flow report today.
It added that the heavy sell-off was also in conformity with other Asian peers namely, Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan amid the political upheaval in Italy and Spain.
The FBM KLCI settled at 1,719 points on the same day after plunging by 3.18%, the biggest daily drop since 2008.
On Thursday, the attrition shrank to RM217.9 million net following efforts to form a coalition government in Italy, coinciding with the FBM KLCI’s 1.24% gain.
“Attrition levels were little changed on Friday at RM225.2 million net as investors waited for the next round of trade talks between the US and China over the weekend,” it said.
MIDF Research said foreigners withdrew RM5.83 billion net in the month of May, which is the highest monthly outflow in 2018 thus far.
“Meanwhile, the year-to-date outflow from Malaysia is RM2.12 billion or US$530.7 million net, which is still the lowest among the four Asean markets that we track,” it said.
Foreign participation spiked as the foreign average daily trade value surged by 174% to an all-time high of RM4.25 billion, mainly due to the MSCI rebalancing on Thursday which boosted the total trading value on Bursa to a record high of RM9 billion.