KUALA LUMPUR: Foreign selling of local equities on Bursa Malaysia accelerated to RM937.5 million last week, from RM226.1 million in the preceding week, said MIDF Research.

In its weekly fund flow report today, MIDF Research said this was the 25th consecutive week of foreign net selling.

"So far in 2020, foreign investors have sold RM19.9 billion net on Bursa.

"In comparison with the other six Asian markets we track, Malaysia still has the fourth smallest foreign net outflow on a year-to-date basis," it added.

The firm said as the market reopened on Monday last week, foreign investors had disposed of RM174.1 million net of local equities, in spite of the Malaysia Leading Index (LI) rebounded to 0.6 per cent year-on-year (yoy) in May 20 from 5.7 per cent in the previous month.

This was the highest recorded LI since March 20 due to the reopening of economic activities after the movement control order (MCO).

"Foreign net outflow increased to RM250.9 million and RM336.9 million on Tuesday and Wednesday last week respectively with the largest net outflow of the week on Wednesday.

"The negative sentiments were probably due to the fear of a new wave of Covid-19 infections globally and deterioration of US-China relationship which might impede the recovery progress of the global economy as well as the uncertain domestic political scene," it said.

The net outflow subsided on Thursday at a tune of RM90.3 million, probably buoyed by the positive sentiments on another potential United States (US) stimulus package, better-than-expected US non farm payrolls of 1.76 million additional jobs in July and higher China's exports of 7.2 per cent yoy in July.

"On Friday, foreign net outflow was the lowest at RM85.3 million, coincided with the Malaysia's Industrial Production Index (IPI) which recorded a slower decline of 0.4 per cent yoy in June, mainly supported by the recovery in manufacturing output," it said.

MIDF Research said in comparison to another three Southeast Asian markets, Malaysia recorded the second highest foreign net outflow while Thailand experienced the least.

"In terms of participation, the retail investors recorded a weekly increase of 50.4 per cent in average daily traded value (ADTV) to RM8.4 billion.

"Meanwhile, the foreign investors experienced the least weekly increase in ADTV by 8.6 per cent to reach RM1.7 billion which was above the healthy level of RM1.0 billion," it added.

https://www.nst.com.my/business/2020/08/615459/stronger-pace-foreign-sale-malaysian-stocks