Net foreign outflows from Bursa Malaysia narrow

PETALING JAYA: Outflows from Bursa Malaysia continued to narrow for the third straight week, with the amount sold by global funds last week receding to RM531.8 million net.

“This is the lowest weekly foreign attrition recorded since the week ended May 11,” MIDF Research said in its fund flow report yesterday.

Foreign net selling levels remained above RM100 million for the first three days with Tuesday recording the highest during the week at RM177.4 million net.

Despite the US threats to impose tariffs on an additional US$200 billion (RM810 billion) worth of Chinese imports, market sentiment in Asia improved on Wednesday, buoyed by overnight gains on Wall Street following PepsiCo’s solid quarterly results.This capped the amount of foreign outflows that day at RM112.9 million net.

It was notable that foreign net outflows declined below RM100 million on Thursday and Friday, to the tune of RM52 million and RM57 million, respectively.

The slowdown in foreign net selling was mainly due to the green light given by the government for a smaller scale LRT3 and the possibility of trade negotiations resuming between the US and China. The FBM KLCI closed above 1,700 points for the first time since June 20 on Thursday and settled above that level for the week.

“Amongst the four Asean markets we monitor, Malaysia’s weekly foreign attrition of -US$131.9 million net last week was the second largest after Thailand, which saw a -US$169.5 million net outflow. Nevertheless, Malaysia still has the second lowest foreign net outflow in Asean worth RM8.06 billion or US$2.01 billion after the Philippines on a year-todate basis,” MIDF said.

Foreign participation recovered last week as the foreign average daily traded value (ADTV) increased by 41% to hit RM1.33 billion, which is a healthy level.

Participation in the retail market and local institutional funds also picked up steam as their ADTVs topped RM1 billion and RM2 billion.