‘Foreigners offloaded RM967.3m equities last week’

KUALA LUMPUR: Foreign investors offloaded RM967.3 million equities last week, compared with RM477.7 million in the preceding week, in line with global fund outflows from Asia, according to MIDF Research.

The firm said global funds had made an exodus from Asia, stretching the weekly withdrawal to its 10th consecutive week, amid a couple of market-defining events, especially in the United States.

“The provisional aggregate data from the seven Asian exchanges that we tracked saw investors classified as ‘foreigners’ offloading US$2.6 billion (RM11 billion) net last week, the largest weekly withdrawal so far this year,” said the research house.

MIDF Research said foreign investors stood firm on their selling positions for the second week, surpassing the preceding week’s year-to-date high. International investors were net sellers on every single trading day last week.

As at last Friday, foreign investors had been selling for eight days straight, the longest selling period since December last year.

For last month, cumulative foreign net outflow amounted to RM737.3 million, a second consecutive month of attrition.

As a result, the cumulative net inflow thus far this year into shares listed on Bursa Malaysia was dragged down to RM9.61 billion.

MIDF Research said foreign participation rate gained momentum last week as the foreign average daily trade value surged by a staggering 46 per cent, to reach above the RM1 billion mark, and settling at RM1.26 billion.