KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 22): Foreign investors remained as net sellers for the week ended on Feb 19 with a net outflow of RM466.42 million, compared with a net outflow of RM40.57 million the prior week.

In its weekly fund flow report today, the MIDF Research team said as the market reopened last Monday, foreign investors bought RM2.62 million net of local equities, with retailers and local institutions as net buyers and sellers to the tune of RM66.55 million and RM69.17 million respectively.

“Contrary to expectations, i.e. the announcement of the arrival of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine in Malaysia on Feb 21, 2021 (yesterday), last week did not spark a massive inflow of foreign investors to our equity market.

“Foreign investors were net sellers every day except Monday last week. The inflow was insufficient to reverse the negative momentum. The largest foreign outflow was recorded on Thursday at RM189.58 million, and the smallest outflow was on Tuesday at only RM16.37 million,” it said.

Meanwhile, retailers were net buyers every day last week. The largest net buying was recorded last Thursday at RM199.84 million, while the smallest net purchase took place last Monday at RM66.55 million.

Local institutions, however, were net sellers every day of the week — except last Wednesday. 

According to MIDF, the mixed ending was recorded after a two-week pattern of net selling this year. The cumulative weekly outflow was to the tune of RM232.64 million. The biggest outflow occurred last Tuesday, while the smallest outflow happened last Thursday at RM10.26 million.

It said, since the beginning of 2021, cumulatively, retailers were the only net buyers of the Malaysian equity market to the tune of RM2.81 billion.

Local institutions and foreign investors were net sellers to the tune of RM1.58 billion and RM1.22 billion respectively, it added.

“In comparison to another three Southeast Asian markets that we tracked last week, all markets recorded a net outflow last week,” it said.

In terms of participation, retail investors, foreign investors and local institutions recorded weekly increases of 64.75%, 49.04% and 48.2% in average daily trading value (ADTV) respectively.