KUALA LUMPUR: CIMB Equities Research is maintaining its Overweight recommendation on Malaysia and is retaining its FBM KLCI target of 1,450, based on a price-to-earnings (P/E) target of around 15 times.

It said on Thursday, Aug 26 that it was pleasantly surprised by the massive net buying by foreign funds in July as net value rose 5.4% to US$6.35 billion as Malaysia had a strong month in July, during which the KLCI gained 3.6% to close at 1,361, its high for the year.

?Statistics from Emerging Portfolio Fund Research (EPFR) revealed a huge net inflow of US$308 million, which pushes year-to-date net flows into positive territory. The net inflow in July is the highest since September 2007 and is on par with total outflows seen in January-May.

?The last time that inflows were so strong was in end-2006, which heralded the start of the 2007 bull market,? it said.

The country?s US$308 million net inflow in July beat its peers such as Singapore (US$215 million), Thailand (US$161 million), Indonesia (US$143 million) and Hong Kong (US$117 million).