Foreign buying spree on Bursa ends after eight weeks

PETALING JAYA: Bursa Malaysia saw the first foreign outflow last week after eight successive weeks of inflow, as foreigners sold RM193.1 million worth of stocks.

Bursa was closed on Wednesday for National Day. The estimated fund flow excludes off-market transactions.

MIDF Research said the selling pressure was in tandem with some other regional peers as the guessing game for the next US rate hike continues.

“Foreigners took profit from Malaysian equities after the roundup of the second quarter corporate earnings. The selling also came amid lower crude oil prices,” MIDF said in its fund flow report yesterday.

There was heavy selling by investors classified as foreigners after the National Day celebration on Wednesday. On Thursday, foreign investors offloaded RM200.7 million. They were also net sellers on Tuesday (RM29.4 million) and Friday (RM44.1 million).

As of last Friday, the year-to-date cumulative net foreign inflow into shares fell to RM2.35 billion from RM2.52 billion in the preceding week. In retrospect, foreigners had offloaded RM19.5 billion in 2015 and RM6.9 billion in 2014.

Foreign participation rate increased amid increasing selling activities and a shorter trading week. It recorded RM1.09 billion, the highest in the past seven weeks, compared to RM659 million a week ago.