KUALA LUMPUR (July 23):  Foreign selling of Malaysian equity halved to RM247.1 million last week from RM531.8 million the prior week, according to MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd Research.

In his weekly fund flow report today, MIDF Research’s Adam M Rahim said this was the smallest weekly attrition recorded so far in 2018.

He said global investors were net sellers on every single day except on Wednesday which saw a foreign inflow worth RM71.7 million net, the first since June 29.

He said the local bourse followed suit to end 0.91% higher at 1,753 points amidst Jerome Powell’s reaffirmation of his upbeat assessment on the U.S economy.

Adam said other Asian peers namely South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines also experienced a surge of inflows on the same day.

“On the other hand, foreign net selling that occurred on other days remained well below RM100 million, a level deemed moderate.

“Thursday recorded the highest foreign net selling during the week at US$95.6 million net.

“Notwithstanding this, the FBM KLCI marked its nine-day winning streak on the same day supported by the rise in construction stocks following the announcement that the KL-Singapore HSR project will be deferred instead of being unilaterally cancelled,” he said.

However, Adam said the reduction of outflows to RM64.6 million net on Friday coincided with the 0.26% decline in the FBM KLCI amidst profit taking activity in telecommunication stocks as they led decliners.

Adam said Malaysia’s year-to-date foreign net outflow has reached RM8.31 billion or US$2.07 billion, offsetting approximately 80% of last year’s RM10.33 billion inflow.

Nevertheless, he said this figure is still the second lowest outflow amongst the 4 ASEAN markets he tracks, standing below the Philippines which has a year-to-date outflow of US$1.31 billion net.

“We note that participation amongst foreign investors, retailers and local institutional funds remained upbeat as each of their average daily traded values (ADTV) stood above RM1 billion, RM800 million and RM2b, respectively,” he said.