KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 4): Foreign investors pulled out of the local market amid a bomb hoax at Bursa Malaysia building on Friday, which saw an outflow of RM266.2 million in a day, according to MIDF Research.

In his weekly fund flow report today, MIDF Research head Zulkifli Hamzah said that last week, foreign outflow was RM240.8 million compared to an inflow of RM733.4 million the week prior.

He said that in September, foreign investors offloaded RM207.2 million compared to a net buying of RM1,580.8 million in August.

“Foreign investors were net sellers on Tuesday (RM100.4 million), Wednesday (RM31.8 million) and Friday (RM266.2 million).

 
“The sell down on Friday was the steepest in a single day since June 16,” he said.
 
Zulkifli said that on the other hand, they were net buyers on Monday (RM50 million) and Thursday (RM107.6 million).
 
He said the buying on Thursday was largely due to OPEC’s decision to cut output, which bodes well for oil prices and some of Malaysia’s upstream oil and gas players.
 
“Foreigners’ participation rate declined for the second successive week to RM885 million against RM921.36 million the week before.
 
“Year-to-date cumulative net foreign inflow contracted slightly to RM2,332.9 million compared to RM2,544.1 million, the highest in almost five months,” he said.
 
Zulkifli said that in retrospect, foreigners had offloaded RM19.5 billion in 2015 and RM6.9 billion in 2014.
 
He said local institutions turned net buyers during the week, loading up RM244.6 million worth of shares.
He said that occurred after they sold off RM738.7 million in the preceding week.
 
Zulkifli said that local funds were buyers on Tuesday (RM80.7 million), Wednesday (RM39.4 million) and Friday (RM231.7 million).
 
He said the buying on last Friday was the highest in a day since
June 16.
 
“On the other hand, they sold stocks on Monday (RM34.7 million) and Thursday (RM72.5 million).
 
“Retailers took profit last week by selling RM3.8 million after being net buyers two weeks in a row before that,” he said.
 
Zulkifli said in the week earlier, they bought RM5.3 million.
 
He said they were net sellers on Monday (RM15.3 million), Wednesday (RM7.6 million) and Thursday (RM35.1 million).
 
They bought RM19.7 million worth of stocks on Tuesday and RM34.5 million on Friday.
 
He said among the three categories of investors, only local institution investors saw an increase in participation rate, which rose to the highest in six weeks at RM2,273.4 million.