Foreign funds sell shares in M’sian bourse

MIDF Research says global funds made an exodus from Asia last week

KUALA LUMPUR: Foreign investors stood firm with their selling positions for the second week, surpassing the preceding week’s year-to-date high.

According to MIDF Research, the net amount offloaded by global investors last week in Malaysia edged up to nearly RM1bil at RM967.3mil from RM477.7mil the week before, based on transactions in the open market which excluded off market deals.

The research house said this was the highest weekly attrition recorded since the week ended Nov 18 last year.

“Global funds made an exodus from Asia, stretching the weekly withdrawal to its 10th consecutive week.“The provisional aggregate data from the seven Asian exchanges that we track saw investors classified as ‘foreign’ offloading US$2.6bil net last week, the largest weekly withdrawal so far this year,” MIDF said in its weekly fund flow report.

Locally, international investors were net sellers on every single trading day last week.

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

“Foreign attrition peaked on Tuesday as foreigners disposed of US$254.8mil, the largest outflow recorded in a day this year so far.

“The heavy selloff on Tuesday coincided with the 0.20% dip in the FBM KLCI following the North Korea’s perception of President Trump’s Twitter comments as a proclamation of war,” MIDF said.

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

As a result, the cumulative net inflow thus far this year into shares listed on Bursa was dragged down to RM9.61bil, below the RM10bil level.

“On a quarterly basis, funds into Malaysia experienced a reversal of trend as 3Q17 had a foreign outflow of RM558.3m net, which is a stark contrast from 2Q17’s foreign net inflow RM4.43bil,” MIDF said.

Foreign participation rate gained momentum last week as the foreign average daily trade value (ADTV) surged by a staggering 46% to reach above the RM1bil mark to settle at RM1.26bil.

Gross trade of foreigners was above RM1bil on four out of five trading days.

It was the other way around for the retail market as the retail ADTV decreased by 8% to drop below the RM1bil mark.

Meanwhile, Nestle registered the highest net money inflow of RM19.70mil last week. KL Kepong recorded the second highest net money inflow of RM13.82mil and Maybank saw the third highest inflow of RM7.26mil.

On the other hand, CIMB saw the largest net money outflow of RM21.48mil last week. Genting Bhd recorded the second largest net money outflow of RM5.14m during the week under review while AirAsia registered the third largest net money outflow at RM4.89mil.

International investors were net sellers on every single trading day last week. MIDF Research