Foreign investors continue selling for another week

PETALING JAYA: Foreign investors remained in their selling positions for the second week last week, surpassing the preceding week’s year-to-date high with almost RM1 billion offloaded.

The net amount offloaded by global investors last week edged up to RM967.3 million from RM477.7 million in the week before, based on transactions in the open market which excluded off market deals.

“This is the highest weekly attrition recorded since the week ended Nov 18 last year,” said MIDF Research in its fund flow report yesterday.

It noted that 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 US$254.8 million (RM1.1 billion), the largest outflow recorded in a day this year so far. The heavy selloff on Tuesday coincided with the 0.2% dip in the FBM KLCI following North Korea’s perception of President Trump’s Twitter comments as a proclamation of war,” it said.

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

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

Foreign participation rate gained momentum last week as the foreign average daily trade value (ADTV) surged 46% to settle at RM1.26 billion. Gross trade of foreigners were above RM1 billion on four out of five trading days.

However, the retail ADTV decreased 8% to fall below the RM1 billion mark.