BURSA Malaysia continued to attract net selling activities from the foreign investor fraternity for the second consecutive week during the shortened trading week due to the Malaysia Day public holiday.

All-in-all, foreign funds net sold -RM186.2 mil worth of equities which was over four times the amount they offloaded in the week prior, according to MIDF Research.

“The net selling by foreign investors has probably stemmed from the higher-than-expected inflation data in the US which prompted investors to expect another aggressive rate hike by the US Fed,” the research house pointed out in its weekly fund flow report.

Foreign investors were net buyers on Monday (Sept 12) at RM47.5 mil before turning net sellers from Tuesday (Sept 13) onwards.

The bulk of the outflows were seen on Thursday (Sept 15) at -RM153.8 mil while the amount of outflows recorded on Tuesday (Sept 13) and Wednesday (Sept 14) were -RM22.4 mil and -RM57.5 mil respectively.

Meanwhile, local institutions which have on last week briefly net bought RM91.3 mil worth of equities after eight weeks of net selling have again turned net sellers last week albeit at a much lower rate of -RM4.7 mil.

They were net sellers from Monday (Sept 12) through Wednesday (Sept 14). Their reported net outflows amounted to -RM35.2 mil on Monday (Sept 12), -RM40.8 mil on Tuesday (Sept 13) and -RM12.6 mil (Sept 14) on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, local institutions turned net buyers on Thursday (Sept 15) by mopping up RM84.0 mil worth of equities before the market took a break on Friday (Sept 16).

On the contrary, local retailers turned net buyers again at RM190.8 mil after having emerged as net sellers with -RM48.8 mil in the previous week.

Starting the week with a net selling of -RM12.3 mil worth of equities, they then net bought RM63.2 mil on Tuesday (Sept 13), RM70.1 mil on Wednesday (Sept 14) and RM69.9 mil on Thursday (Sept 15).

Year-to-date (YTD), international investors have been net buyers for 24 out of the 37 weeks of 2022 with a total net inflow of RM7.93 bil while local institutions were net sellers for 29 out of 37 weeks with a total net outflow of -RM9.91 bil.

Local retailers have been net buyers for 24 out of 37 weeks of 2022. YTD, they have net bought RM1.98 bil worth of equities.

In terms of participation, there was an increase in average daily trade value (ADTV) across all investor classes at +14.7% for retail investors, +5.1% (institutional investors) and +58.3% (foreign investors).

In comparison with another three Southeast Asian markets tracked by MIDF Research last week, Indonesia and the Philippines again posted a net inflow by foreign funds at US$23.94 and US$19.65 respectively.

Thailand again recorded the biggest outflow at -US$134.68 mil followed by Malaysia at -US$41.03 mil.

The top three stocks with the highest net money inflow last week were Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd (RM6.27 mil), Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd (RM4.32 mil) and Genting Bhd (RM3.52 mil). – Sept 19, 2022