KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 26): Foreign buying of Malaysian equities more than doubled to RM786.1 million last week from RM352.9 million the prior week.

In its fund flow report on Monday, MIDF Research said that similar to the previous week, foreign investors net bought every day.

It said the net buying streak has gone on for 16 consecutive trading days, something not seen since February 2022.

“The highest net inflow came on Tuesday at RM413.8 million, the day the ringgit fell to its all-time low since 1998.

“The sectors with the highest net foreign inflows were Financial Services (RM287.2 million), Utilities (RM235.8 million), and Energy (RM76.9 million), while the sectors with the highest net foreign outflows were REITs (RM18.6 million), Plantation (RM12.4 million), and Construction (RM4.4 million),” it said.

MIDF said as opposed to foreign investors, local institutions continued their trend of net selling domestic equities for the fifth consecutive week, totalling RM596.6 million, 2.1 times higher than the week before at RM277.5 million.

“For the third consecutive week, local retailers stuck to their pattern of net selling domestic equities, with total sales reaching RM189.6 million net last week.

“In terms of participation, there were increases in average daily trading volume (ADTV) across all investor classes,” it said.

MIDF said local retailers saw an increase of 29.9%, local institutions an increase of 26.6% and foreign investors an increase of 21.6%.

Commenting on the international markets, MIDF said policymakers have expressed concerns about the risk of premature interest rate cuts and emphasised uncertainty regarding the duration of maintaining a restrictive monetary policy stance to achieve the Federal Reserve’s (Fed) 2.0% inflation target.

It said this was stated in the minutes of the Jan-24 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting released last Wednesday.

“Nevertheless, despite this, last week saw 16 out of the 20 major indices we track posting gains for the week, with top performers being the CSI 300 (3.71%), the CAC 40 (2.56%) and the Hang Seng Index (2.36%).

“Conversely, notable decliners included Singapore’s Straits Times (1.15%), the Jakarta Composite Index (0.55%), and the ASX 200 (0.19%),” it said.