KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 29): Foreign buying of Malaysian equities extended for the sixth week as at Aug 26, but moderated to RM244.6 million from RM615.5 million in the prior week.

In its weekly fund flow report on Monday (Aug 29), the MIDF Research team said foreigners were net sellers only last Wednesday at a rate of RM90.5 million, but were net buyers for the rest of the week.

It said they were net buyers last Monday at RM56.2 million, Tuesday at RM14.2 million, Thursday at RM193 million and Friday at RM71.7 million.

“Local institutions were still net sellers at RM286.2 million last week, now going into the seventh consecutive week.

“They had been net sellers for every trading day since Aug 3, before briefly turning net buyers last Wednesday at RM24.3 million,” it said.

MIDF said they were net sellers again last Thursday at RM114.3 million and Friday at RM63.5 million.

“They net sold RM92.4 million last Monday and RM40.4 million on Tuesday.

“Local retailers maintained their net buying spree for the third week coming, net buying RM41.7 million.

“They bought RM128.6 million net from last Monday to Wednesday, before net selling RM87 million over the next two days,” it said.

MIDF said the top three sectors which saw net inflows by foreign investors were financial services at RM333.7 million, telecommunications at RM49.5 million and utilities at RM39.9 million.

Meanwhile, it said the top three sectors with net outflows were technology at RM87.8 million, healthcare at RM73.1 million, and industrial products and services at RM25.3 million.

“To date, international funds were net buyers for 23 out of 34 weeks of 2022, with a total net inflow of RM7.97 billion.

“Local institutions were net sellers for 27 out of 34 weeks, with a total net outflow of RM9.76 billion,” it said.

MIDF said local retailers were net buyers for 22 out of 34 weeks of 2022.

It said that year-to-date, they are net buyers at RM1.8 billion.

“In terms of participation, there was a decline in average daily trade value across the board, led by 8.9% among local institutions, 2.97% among retailers and 0.9% among foreign investors,” it said.

Commenting on international markets, MIDF said benchmark indices on Wall Street fell to their monthly lows.

It said the Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked 4.22% to 32,282.80 points, while the S&P 500 lost 4.04% to 4,057.66 points.

It said the Nasdaq Composite took a greater hit by 4.44% to 12,141.71 points.

“These were driven by hawkish comments by US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell during the Jackson Hole conference.

“Out of the 16 major indices that we track, 13 were in the red, with Germany’s DAX taking the bottom spot with a 4.23% weekly decline.

“This was followed by the Dow and the S&P 500. The only three advancers were the Hang Seng Index at 2.01%, Thailand’s SET Index at 1.16%, and Singapore’s STI at 0.09%,” it said.