Foreign funds snap three-week selling spree

KUALA LUMPUR: Foreign funds snapped their three-week selling streak and turned into net buyers with a net inflow of RM285.83mil last week, compared with a net outflow of RM477.43mil in the preceding week.

MIDF Research said as the market reopened last Monday, foreign investors bought RM50.30mil0 net of local equities, with retailers and local institutions as net buyers and net sellers to the tune of RM121.06mil and RM171.36mil respectively.

The research house said foreign investors were net buyers every day except Thursday during last week, echoing the positive sentiment emanating from the roll-out of the Covid-19 vaccine programme in Malaysia, and the lifting of MCO in KL, Selangor, Penang and Johor.

“On a year-to-date basis, foreign net selling this year has come in lower when compared against the same period last year.

“Net selling by foreigners was RM1.42bil for 2021 thus far, as compared to RM3.30bil over the same period in 2020,” MIDF said in its weekly fund flow report.

It noted that retailers were net buyers every day last week. The largest net buying was recorded on Monday at RM121.06mil while the smallest net purchase was on Tuesday at RM22.45mil.

Meanwhile, local institutions were net sellers every day of the week, except on Thursday. The mixed ending was recorded after a four weeks pattern of net selling this year.

MIDF said cumulative weekly outflow was to the tune of RM590.40mil. The biggest net selling was on Tuesday at RM262.62mil while the smallest net selling was on Friday at RM83.34mil.

“Since the beginning of 2021, cumulatively, retailers have been the only net buyers of our equity market to the tune of RM4.05bil.

“Local institutions and foreign investors were net sellers to the tune of RM2.64bil and RM1.42bil respectively,” MIDF said.

In terms of participation, the retail investors, foreign investors and local institutions recorded a weekly decrease of 21.51%, 30.48% and 22.37% in average daily trade value respectively.