KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 5): Bursa Malaysia saw its first foreign outflow last week after eight successive weeks of inflow, as foreigners offloaded RM193.1 million worth of stocks, according to MIDF Research.

In his weekly fund flow report, MIDF head Zulkifli Hamzah said the selling pressure was in tandem with some other regional peers, as the guessing game of when the next US rate hike might be continued.

"Foreigners took profit from Malaysian equities after the roundup of 2Q (second quarter) corporate earnings. The selling also came amid lower crude oil prices," he noted.

Brent crude declined another 6.2% to US$46.83 (RM193.75) on a week-on-week basis. In the prior week, it slid 1.89% to US$49.92 after the rally that began since early August.

Last week was a shortened trading week as Bursa closed on Wednesday for the National Day celebrations. Zulkifli said there was heavy selling by investors classified as 'foreigners' after Wednesday.

"On Thursday, foreign investors offloaded RM200.7 million. They were also net sellers on Tuesday (-RM29.4 million) and Friday (-RM44.1 million)," he said.

This trimmed the year-to-date cumulative net foreign inflow into shares listed on Bursa to RM2.347 billion, from RM2.54 billion in the preceding week. For some perspective, he reiterated that foreigners had offloaded RM19.5 billion in 2015 and RM6.9 billion in 2014.

In terms of participation rate, by volume, Zulkifli observed that there was a rise amid increasing selling activities in the shorter trading week. It recorded RM1.088 billion, the highest seen in the past seven weeks, he noted, compared to RM659 million a week ago.

"It was the second time it breached the RM1 billion level since July 15. Before that, it had been staying below the RM1 billion level for 11 times in 12 weeks," he added.

In contrast, local institutions turned net buyers last week after being net sellers for eight weeks in a row. "They bought RM177.8 million last week after offloading RM102.8 million in the week before. [Previously,] they have been selling every week since July 8," he said.

Their participation rate, however, continued to fall, breaking below the RM2 billion level to settle at RM1.94 billion, he said, compared to the week prior's RM2.02 billion.

Retail buyers, meanwhile, were net buyers on Bursa for the third week, though the buying momentum slowed, he said.

They bought RM15.3 million last week compared with RM53.4 million the week before, while participation rate declined to RM602 million from RM624.6 million.

Regionally, Asia started September with a weak inflow of US$30.3 million after seeing an outflow of US$394.1 million a week earlier, noted Zulkifli. Selected markets like South Korea and India recouped some of the outflow from the week earlier, while other markets continued to see outflow, with the exception of Thailand, whose inflow streak was maintained, he said.

Globally, he said stock markets "teetered cautiously before ending the week slightly higher" after the US job data — which came in below expectations — was released on Friday.

"Although the latest data does not point to a reinforced case for a September rate hike, the greenback strengthened as the probability of a tighter policy in December increased," he noted.