KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 3): Foreign selling of Malaysian equity on Bursa Malaysia widened to RM244.5 million last week from RM52.3 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In his weekly fund flow report today, MIDF Research’s Adam M Rahim said this was nearly 5 times of the amount withdrawn in the preceding week.

He said international investors entered into Bursa on Monday at a tune of RM65.2 million net, extending the foreign net buying streak from last week to three days with much of the optimism coming from Wall Street’s Black Friday spending which surged to a record in addition to the stabilisation of Brent crude oil price reaching US$60 per barrel.

However, Adam said t here was an exodus of foreign funds of Tuesday as international investors offloaded RM277.1 million, the largest in a day since early November this year, coinciding with the FBM KLCI’s biggest daily drop since Oct 23.

He said investor sentiment was tempered on Tuesday as President Trump intends expand trade tariffs on all remaining imports from China and the Genting Malaysia Bhd’s legal dispute with Walt Disney and and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc.

Adam said the level of foreign net selling shrank to RM32.7 million on Wednesday before seeing a measurable net inflow of US$84.5 million following the speech by Fed Chair Powell.

Nevertheless, he said Thursday’s foreign buying was wiped off by Friday’s selloff worth RM84.8 million as investors retreated to the sidelines ahead of the highly anticipated meeting between Beijing and Washington in Buenos Aires.

Adam said the day was also marked by the rebalancing of the MSCI Indices which took place at the end of Friday.

He said the month of November recorded a total foreign net outflow of RM718.9 million, almost half of the RM1.42 billion offloaded in October.

He said this brings the year-to-date foreign outflow to RM10.67 billion or US$2.64 billion, an amount which is not as high compared to the other two ASEAN peers MIDF Research tracks namely, Thailand and Indonesia which have seen year-to-date outflows larger than US$3 billion.

He said the average daily traded value (ADTV) for foreigners stood below RM1 billion for the third week in a row, a level deemed not active.