PETALING JAYA: Foreign net outflow quickened to a tune of RM905.9 million net of local equities last week versus an outflow of RM270.0 million in the preceding week.
MIDF Research said this was the 22nd consecutive week of foreign net selling. So far in 2020, foreign investors have sold RM17.8 billion net on Bursa.
“In comparison with the other six Asian markets we track, Malaysia still has the fourth smallest foreign net outflow on a year-to-date basis,“ the research house said in its fund flow report today.
Bursa bucked the trend with foreign net outflow on every day of last week. As markets reopened on Monday last week, foreign investors disposed of RM77.1 million net of local equities which was the lowest foreign net outflow of the week.
On Tuesday, the foreign net outflow increased to RM220.2 million which was coincided with the announcement of Malaysia’s unemployment rate increased to 5.3% in May from 5% in April, reflecting the economic fallout from the movement control order.
Foreign net outflow subsided on Wednesday and Thursday last week at a tune of RM207.3 million and RM132.5 million respectively due to the news of positive progress on the Covid-19 vaccine.
Nonetheless, foreign investors remained in riskoff mode amidst the surging coronavirus cases globally, deteriorating US-China relationship, and weaker-than-expected retail sales in China, as well as the detention orders on Top Glove’s shipments by the US Custom Authority.
As Bursa reopened on Friday following a trading halt, it experienced the highest foreign net outflow at a tune of RM268.7 million. Nonetheless, the KLCI Index posted its highest one-day gain since June 3, 2020 of about 2.0% to 1,596.3 points on the same day, possibly boosted by the strong rebound in the glove counters.
“In comparison to another three Asean peers that we tracked last week, Malaysia recorded the highest foreign net outflow while Thailand experienced the least foreign net outflow,” said MIDF.
In terms of participation, retail and institutional groups recorded a weekly increase in their average daily traded value by 21.7% and 18.2% respectively while the foreign investors experienced the least weekly increase in their average daily traded value by 6.3% to reach RM1.4 billion which was above the healthy level of RM1.0 billion.
