KUALA LUMPUR (April 20): Foreign selling of local equity on Bursa Malaysia accelerated to RM638.6 million last week, compared to RM326.0 million disposed of in the preceding week, according to MIDF Research.

In his weekly fund flow report today, MIDF Research’s Adam M Rahim said that in comparison to its other six Asian peers that MIDF Research monitors, Malaysia remains as the nation with the third smallest foreign net outflow on a year-to-date (YTD) basis.

He said the YTD foreign outflow from Malaysia came to RM9.1 billion.

“The pace of foreign net selling on Monday remained steady below RM100 million as foreign investors only sold RM76.8 million of local equities.

“Foreign investors took the opportunity to accumulate some local equities on Tuesday at a tune of RM20.3 million amidst reports that China’s exports posted a lesser-than-expected decline in March 2020, falling by only 6.6% year-on-year (y-o-y) compared to the consensus of a 14.0% y-o-y drop,” he said.

Adam said Wednesday saw the local bourse inch higher to settle at 1,387.8 points, the highest close in more than a month following the IMF’s latest World Economic Report that Malaysia’s economic growth will be the fastest amongst ASEAN-5 countries in 2021.

“Notwithstanding this, foreign investors dumped RM159.5 million of local equities.

“The local market was instead supported by the purchase of RM241.8 million of local equities by local institutions on Wednesday,” he said.

Adam said the momentum of foreign net selling accelerated further to RM240.1 million on Thursday amidst lacklustre trading on Wall Street spurred by the US industrial output which experienced the biggest drop in more than 70 years last month.

“The level of foreign net selling remained high on Friday at RM182.5 million despite the positive reports of a Covid-19 drug test done by Gilead Sciences Inc and a plan to reopen the US economy.

“In terms of participation, foreign investors were the only investor group which saw its average daily traded value (ADTV) increase for the week by 5.6% to RM1.03 billion while retail and institutional investors saw a weekly decline in ADTV by 11.7% and 3.2% respectively,” he said.

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