KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 8): Foreign buying of Malaysian equities rose last week to RM388.2 million, from RM152.94 million the prior week, against the backdrop of a third consecutive week of net buying by overseas funds.

In its weekly fund flow report on Monday (Aug 8), the MIDF Research team said foreign funds were net sellers only last Tuesday, but this was more than offset by net inflows for the rest of the trading days last week.

“They started off the week by net buying RM49.7 million worth of equities, before turning to net sellers last Tuesday at RM40 million.

“The buying spree continued last Wednesday at RM75 million, while last Thursday saw the strongest net foreign inflow of RM284.2 million, an amount last seen at the end of May.

“Foreigners then net bought RM19.3 million to close off the week,” it said.

MIDF said local institutions remained as net sellers for the fourth consecutive week at RM266.9 million, almost four times the amount that they net sold in the previous week.

It said they were net buyers only last Tuesday at RM68.3 million, but this was insufficient to cushion the selling activities that took place during the rest of the week.

The research house said last Thursday saw the largest net selling at RM205.5 million.

“Meanwhile, the net selling amount was RM21.7 million last Monday, RM80.2 million last Wednesday, and RM27.7 million last Friday.

“Moving on to local retailers, they were still net sellers for the third consecutive week last week at RM121.4 million,” it said.

MIDF said the heaviest outflow was seen last Thursday at RM78.7 million, while last Monday recorded a softer net outflow of RM28 million, and Tuesday RM28.3 million.

It said local retailers briefly turned into net buyers last Wednesday at RM5.2 million and RM8.5 million at the end of the week.

The research house said that to date, international funds were net buyers for 20 out of 31 weeks of 2022, with a total net inflow of RM6.65 billion.

It said local institutions were net sellers for 24 out of 31 weeks, with a total net outflow of RM8.23 billion.

Meanwhile, local retailers were net buyers for 19 out of 31 weeks.

Year-to-date, they have net bought RM1.57 billion.

“In terms of participation, all investor classes recorded an increase in average daily trade volume, with retail investors at 11.4%, institutional investors at 3.7%, and foreign investors at 5.7%,” it said.

Commenting on global markets, MIDF said Dow Jones marginally declined to 32,803.47 (down 0.13%), and the S&P 500 was higher at 4,145.19 (up 0.36%), while the Nasdaq too ended higher at 12,675.55 (up 2.2%).

“Out of the 16 major indices that we track, 14 were in the green territory last week, led by Singapore’s Straits Times Index (2.2%), the Jakarta Composite Index (1.9%), and South Korea’s KOSPI (1.6%).

“The only two indices that saw weekly losses were Dow Jones (-0.13%), and China’s CSI 300 (-0.32%),” it said.