Offshore investors mark fourth week of selling shares on Bursa
KUALA LUMPUR: Offshore investors have marked their fourth straight week of selling shares on Bursa Malaysia, analysts observed in the latest fund flow report.
According to the research arm of MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd (MIDF Research), based on data from Bursa, foreign funds sold - RM244.5 million net of local equities last week, the highest in five weeks.
MIDF Research noted that this was nearly five times of the amount withdrawn in the preceding week.
“International investors entered into Bursa on Monday at a tune of RM65.2 million net, extending the foreign net buying streak from last week to three days with much of the optimism coming from Wall Street’s Black Friday spending which surged to a record in addition to the stabilisation of Brent crude oil price reaching US$60 per barrel,” it said.
“However, there was an exodus of foreign funds of Tuesday as international investors offloaded RM277.1 million, the largest in a day since early November this year, coinciding with the FBM KLCI’s biggest daily drop since October 23, 2018.
“Investor sentiment was tempered on Tuesday as President Trump intends expand trade tariffs on all remaining imports from China and the Genting Malaysia Bhd’s (Genting Malaysia) legal dispute with Walt Disney and and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc.”
The research arm went on to note that the level of foreign net selling shrank to RM32.7 million on Wednesday before seeing a measurable net inflow of US$84.5 million following the speech by Fed Chair Powell.
“Nevertheless, Thursday’s foreign buying was wiped off by Friday’s selloff worth RM84.8 million as investors retreated to the sidelines ahead of the highly anticipated meeting between Beijing and Washington in Buenos Aires.
“The day was also marked by the rebalancing of the MSCI Indices which took place at the end of Friday.”
MIDF Research highlighted that the month of November recorded a total foreign net outflow of RM718.9 million, almost half of the RM1.42 billion offloaded in October.
This brought the year-to-date (YTD) foreign outflow to RM10.67 billion or US$2.64 billion, an amount which was not as high compared to the other two Asean peers the research arm tracked namely, Thailand and Indonesia which have seen YTD outflows larger than US$3 billion.
On the average daily traded value (ADTV) for foreigners, MIDF Research said that it stood below RM1 billion for the third week in a row, a level deemed not active.