KUALA LUMPUR: Offshore investors pulled out RM421 million net of local equities for the week ended March 15, marking their fifth straight week of exiting Malaysia, MIDF Research said.

Foreign net selling occurred from Monday to Thursday, stretching the daily selling spree to 16 days, the longest since the 37-day selling streak from early May to end of June 2018.

However, MIDF Research said the foreign outflow was less than half of the amount sold in the preceding week.

It said Malaysia had recorded a sizeable foreign net outflow on Monday of RM272.3 million, a level not seen since late November last year.

"Nonetheless, the magnitude of foreign attrition was not as high compared to North Asian peers such as South Korea and Taiwan which saw foreign net selling levels above RM400 million.

"The local bourse followed suit to dip by 0.9 per cent on the same day to close at 1,664 points, the lowest close so far in 2019," MIDF Research said in its weekly fund flow report today.

The firm said the level of foreign net selling had dipped below RM100 million to RM60.9 million on Tuesday following the unexpected rise in January's US retail sales overnight. However, the amount withdrawn by offshore investors more than doubled to RM125.6 million the next day.

Another series of tapering outflows happened again on Thursday as only RM13.4 million net was sold.

"The rebound in US business equipment orders to reach the highest in six months helped outweigh the fall the China's industrial output to a 17-year low in the first two months of the year," it said.

MIDF Research said global funds then bought RM51.3 million net on Friday, snapping the 16-day selling streak on Bursa Malaysia as China pledges to stick to its targeted stimulus with tax cuts beginning next month.

In the first two weeks of March 2019, foreign funds sold RM1.48 billion net. As such, foreign funds had withdrawn RM1.27 billion net from Malaysia on a year-to-date basis.

On the regional front, Malaysia is still the nation with the only foreign net outflow among the four Asean markets that MIDF Research tracks.

"Indonesia still retains the lead with a foreign net inflow of US$686.9 million or above RM2.5 billion ahead of its presidential and general election in April 2019," it said.