KUALA LUMPUR (July 12): Foreign selling of Malaysian equities narrowed to RM120.55 million last week from RM320.28 million the prior week.

In its weekly fund flow report on Tuesday (July 12), the MIDF Research team said foreign investors were net sellers for the whole week except last Tuesday and Friday when they net bought RM13.7 million and RM11.4 million respectively.

The research house said the heaviest outflow observed took place last Monday at RM79.4 million.

“Local institutions remained to be net buyers for two consecutive weeks after buying RM29.9 million last week.

“They were net buyers last Monday at RM50.2 million and turned into net sellers last Tuesday at RM22.2 million,” it said.

The research house said they turned into net buyers again last Wednesday and Thursday to the tune of RM5.32 million and RM0.6 million respectively before turning into net sellers at the end of the week at RM4 million.

“Local retailers were on a net buying spree last week except last Friday when they net sold RM7.4 million.

“The highest net buying recorded was on Wednesday, which amounted to RM55.9 million,” it said.

To date, international funds have been net buyers for 17 out of 27 weeks of 2022, with a total net inflow of RM5.95 billion, according to MIDF.

It said local institutions were net sellers for 20 out of 27 weeks, with a total net outflow of RM7.78 billion.

It said local retailers had been net buyers for 18 out of 27 weeks of 2022, adding that year-to-date, they are net buyers at RM1.83 billion.

“On a sectoral basis, the industrial products and services, technology and transportation sectors saw the highest net outflows last week with RM44.6 million, RM42.5 million and RM32.6 million respectively.

“The top three sectors (out of four) with the highest net inflows were financial services (RM20.6 million), healthcare (RM16.4 million) and plantation (RM8.8 million),” it said.

MIDF said that in terms of participation, foreign investors, institutional investors and retailers saw declines in average daily trade value of 18.2%, 21.0% and 14.2% respectively.

Commenting on global markets, MIDF said that for the first time this year, the Nasdaq recorded gains for five consecutive days last week as investors reacted to better-than-expected job growth in June 2022.

It said that for the week, the Nasdaq gained 4.6% to close at 11,635.31, whereas the S&P 500 was up by 1.9% to end at 3,899.38, while Dow Jones lagged but still added 0.8% to close at 31,338.15.

“Out of the 16 exchanges that we track, 11 were in positive territory.

“Among the top advancers, the Philippines' PCOMP gained 3.19% and India’s Sensex added 2.97%, while Japan’s Nikkei was up by 2.24%,” it said.