KUALA LUMPUR (April 22): Foreign selling of local equity on Bursa Malaysia rose to RM433.4 million last week from RM289.3 million the prior week, according to MIDF Amanah Investment Bank Bhd Research.

In his weekly fund flow report today, MIDF Research's Adam M Rahim said this was the largest weekly foreign net outflow in six weeks.

"International investors were net sellers throughout the week, extending the daily foreign net selling streak to seven days as of last Friday.

"Bursa began the quarter with a rather sour note as foreign funds took out almost RM100 million on Monday despite waning concerns of the US-China trade war following the strong recovery in China's exports which grew 14.2% year-on-year in March 2019," he said.

Adam said the level of foreign net selling dropped to RM38.2 million on the next day ahead of the release of China's 1Q19 gross domestic product (GDP).

He said it was notable that the majority of North Asian peers, namely Taiwan and Korea, saw foreign net inflows of above US$100 million.

"There was an exodus of foreign funds on Wednesday to a tune of RM140.6 million as the optimism spurred by China's 1Q19 GDP was weighed down by the possible exclusion of Malaysian debt from the FTSE World Government Bond Index which may lead to a US$8.0 billion drain in Malaysa's bond market.

"Thursday saw a foreign net outflow of RM96.4 million net before declining further to RM59.8 million on Friday. On Friday, the government of Malaysia reinstated the Bandar Malaysia project, lifting the local bourse slightly by 0.1% to close at 1,622 points," he said.

Adam said the month of April has so far seen a foreign net outflow of RM1.14 billion.

He said this has brought the year-to-date foreign net outflow to RM2.50 billion.

He said among the four ASEAN markets MIDF Research monitors, Malaysia retains its position as the nation with the largest foreign net outflow.

"Meanwhile, amongst the seven Asian markets we track, India is the nation with the largest foreign net inflow worth more than US$8.5 billion or RM30 billion as the general election is still ongoing until May 2019," he said.