PETALING JAYA: Foreign investors continued to acquire local stocks for a third consecutive week with a net of RM230.2 million last week, according to MIDF Research.
The week started on the right foot as international funds bought RM144. 38 million of local equities on Monday as the risk appetite was bolstered by the agreement between the US and China to resume trade negotiations during the G20 summit in the preceding week.
Despite the additional tariffs proposed by the US towards the European Union on US$4 billion worth of goods, foreign net buying activity intensified on Tuesday to reach RM143.8 million net, a level not seen since June 3, 2019.
“This was in conformity with other regional peers namely, Thailand and Indonesia,” said the research house.
With that, the local bourse rose 0.4%, effectively cancelling off its year-to-date loss for the first time since March 18, 2019.
On Wednesday, the foreign net buying slowed to RM12.6 million but it marked a six straight day of buying spree.
“Trade optimism waned as investors were concerned on a trade dispute, this time between Korea and Japan.”
Meanwhile, Thursday and Friday saw the end of the inflow as foreign funds took out RM17.4 million net and RM23.3 million net of local equities respectively.
Last week’s foreign net inflow brings the year to-date foreign net outflow from Malaysia to RM4.43 billion.
The other six Asian markets monitored by MIDF (Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Taiwan and the Philippines), however, have seen a foreign net inflow so far for the year.
With regards to participation, MIDF said the average daily traded value (ADTV) of foreign investors experienced a decline of 13.7% to RM891.6 million for the week, below the healthy threshold of RM1.0 billion.
“Meanwhile, both retail investors and local institutional funds recorded an increase in their ADTV by more than 20% for the week.”
