PETALING JAYA: Foreign funds remained as the net sellers on Bursa Malaysia last week, according to MIDF Research.
“Based on data from Bursa, foreign investors sold RM150.9 million net of local equities last week compared to RM249.3 million in the week before. So far in 2019, there has been 26 weeks of foreign net selling,” the research house said in a report today.
It noted that a sense of calm descended on Monday as foreign investors shrugged off China’s cancellation of a planned visit to farms in the US which was unrelated to the trade matters between the two nations.
“As such, international funds accumulated RM11.5m net of local equities on the same day.”
Foreign funds turned net sellers to a tune of RM62.2 million on Tuesday despite the new waivers granted to domestic state and private companies to buy US soybeans without being subjected to retaliatory tariffs.
The pace of foreign net selling activity was little changed at RM62.9 million on Wednesday as investors weighed the rising possibility of impeachment proceedings being brought against President Trump.
MIDF said positivity returned to the market on Thursday as foreign investors snapped up RM100.1 million net of local equities. This followed the draft rules in China of requiring banks to distribute excess provisions for bad loans to investors to curb accounting malpractice.
“Foreign net selling peaked during the week on Friday at RM137.3 million as Malaysia was retained on the watchlist for exclusion from the FTSE Russell World Government Bond Index.”
With one day trading left, MIDF said September has seen a foreign net outflow of RM486.7 million net, one of the lowest among the four Asean markets monitored.
On a year-to-date basis, international funds have taken out RM7.83 billion worth of local equities from Bursa.
