KUALA LUMPUR: Foreign investors snapped a five-week buying streak to turn net sellers in the previous week to the tune of RM1.24bil.
MIDF Research noted that the technology sector led the sell-off by offshore funds with RM108.5mil net of sales.
The transport and logistics and property sectors followed with net sales of RM64.8mil and RM22.4mil respectively.
Meanwhile, sectors that led foreign inflows into Bursa Malaysia were financial services (RM800mil), utilities (RM250.7mil) and plantations (RM157.4mil).
Local institutions were net buyers over every day of the past week for a total of RM341.9mil net, while local retailers ended 11 weeks of consecutive net sales to purchase RM205.9mil net of domestic equities.
According to MIDF, the transition in the flow of foreign funds from inflow to outflow was observed across all eight Asian markets under its coverage.
"Last week, foreign investors shifted from being net buyers to net sellers of Asian equities, totalling a net sell-off of US$7.23bil," said the research firm in its weekly fund flow report.
The sell-off by foreign investors in regional markets coincided with the release of a US inflation report, which indicated that the heightened pace of price increase might persist longer than anticipated.
"This uncertainty casts doubt on the timeline for the central bank to implement interest rate cuts," said MIDF.
In April, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index rose 0.3%, matching the unrevised gain in March.
Over the 12 months through April, the PCE index increased 2.7%, maintaining the same pace of advancement as in March.
