PUTRAJAYA (May 17): CGS-CIMB Research said retail investors turned weekly net sellers for the first time this year, with a net sale of RM64.3 million equities last week against a net buy of RM328 million the previous week, possibly due to concerns over Movement Control Order (MCO) 3.0.

The local research house in a May 14 note said retail investors were net sellers in the industrial and healthcare sectors with their top three net sell stocks being Top Glove Corp Bhd, Genting Bhd and D&O Green Technologies Bhd.

For the week ending May 12, retail investors’ top three net buy stocks were Focus Dynamic Group Bhd, Inari Amerton Bhd and Frontken Corporation Bhd - Warrant B.

“We suspect they (retail investors) could be reducing their positions due possibly to MCO 3.0 concerns,” said CGS-CIMB.

The Malaysian government placed the entire country under MCO restrictions from May 12 until June 7 due to rising new Covid-19 cases. 

The research house noted that all investor groups, except local institutions and local nominees, were net sellers during the holiday-shortened week ending May 12.

They added that retail investors had a 38% share of total trading for that week (-2.1 percentage points week-on-week), while institutional investors had 29.9% (+7.6ppts w-o-w), proprietaries had 14.3% (-0.9ppts w-o-w), and nominees had 17.8% (+1.1ppts w-o-w).

That week, local institutional investors emerged as the largest net buyers of RM172.2 million against a net sell of RM167.3 million last week.

Local nominees’ net buying fell 61% w-o-w for that week to RM56 million, while proprietary investors turned net sellers that week at RM56 million, compared to RM31 million net buy last week.

CGS-CIMB said local retail fund flows showed Public Bank Bhd as the largest net buy stock year-to-date (YTD) while the largest net sell was Genting Bhd.

The largest YTD net buys by retail investors have been in the financial services (+RM2.2 billion) and utilities (+RM1.1 billion) sectors, while there have been no net sell sectors. 

Foreign investors remained the largest net sellers for the eighth consecutive week, but with their net sell flow dropping 68% w-o-w to RM108 million for the shorter trading week last week.