Foreign interest in Malaysian equities continues amid global markets rally

KUALA LUMPUR: The foreign inflow to Bursa Malaysia continued for its fourth consecutive week in the week ended Aug 12, 2022, with a net inflow of RM451.7mil.

According to MIDF Research, the inflow accelerated over the previous week as global markets rallied on signs of cooling US inflation renewing hope of less aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.

"The bulk of the net buying happened on Thursday and Friday at RM232.9m and RM206.2m respectively after the release of lower than expected US inflation data and stronger than expected Malaysia’s GDP data," said MIDF in its weekly fund flow report.

This was in line with the buying of Asian equities, which tracked benchmark indices on Wall Street higher for a fourth straight week of gains.

"Based on the provisional aggregate data for the seven Asian exchanges that we track, investors classified as 'foreign' net bought US$1.37b net last week, half the amount seen the week prior, which was US$2.74b," said MIDF.

On Bursa Malaysia, foreign net inflow year-to-date increased to RM7.11bil with net buying in 21 out of the 32 weeks of 2022 so far.

Over the recent week ended Aug 12, net selling by local institutions continued for its fifth straight week at a rate of RM573mil.

Local retailers became net buyers of RM121.3mil of Malaysian equities, snapping three weeks of net selling previously.

In terms of participation, there was an increase in average daily trade value (ADTV) among local institutional investors by 1.05%.

Reductions in ADTV were seen among foreign investors and local retailers by 3.57% and 3.36% respectively.