KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 19): The direction of Malaysian equity foreign fund flow changed last week as foreign investors turned net buyers, according to MIDF Research.

In its weekly fund report, MIDF Research's strategy team said the net amount bought by foreigners on Bursa last week became positive at RM44 million, the highest level since Oct 21.

The team said it believed this could be signalling a recovering confidence from foreign investors towards Malaysian equity.

"Pursuant to the prior week, foreign investors were net buyers on Tuesday with a build-up of RM159.9 million, the highest since mid-October.

"Despite the attrition on the remaining days which accumulated to RM115.9 million, foreign investors became net buyers last week, the first in eight weeks.

"The lowest attrition was on Friday of RM1 million," it said.

The MIDF Research team said that on a cumulative year to date, the amount of net selling from foreigners is RM2.5 billion.

However, compared to 2015, the outflow amount is still considered low as only RM8.5 billion has been redeemed since April, it said.

"It was RM19.5 billion net outflow in 2015.

"Retail investors' gross participation rate continued [to expand] slightly to RM378.5 million.

"However, the buying on dips conviction fell slightly to RM14.1 million compared to the prior week of RM21.1 million," it said.