KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 1): Foreign selling of local equities on Bursa Malaysia rose to RM485 million last week, compared with RM124.4 million the prior week, said MIDF Research.

The research house said this marked the biggest outflow in August. However, it was still far less than July’s outflow, where foreign investors sold shares amounting to RM2.7 billion.

“So far in 2020, foreign investors have sold RM20.53 billion net on Bursa,” MIDF said in its weekly fund flow report today.

It said retailers were net buyers of RM203.30 million worth of equities last week, almost in a similar amount with local institutions at RM281.05 million during the same period.

In terms of participation, MIDF said retail investors recorded a weekly increase of 27.4% in average daily trading value (ADTV), while foreign investors experienced an increase in ADTV of 120.8%.

“In comparison to another three Southeast Asian markets that we tracked last week, Indonesia recorded the least foreign net outflow, while Thailand experienced the biggest outflow compared to the others,” it said.

MIDF said as the market reopened last Monday, foreign investors sold RM120.92 million net of local equities, with retailers and local institutions as net buyers and net sellers at RM147.3 million and RM26.34 million respectively.

However, foreign selling was stalled midweek as foreign investors turned into net buyers to the tune of RM1.91 million, said MIDF, before resuming the selling momentum until the end of the week. The largest net outflow of the week occurred last Thursday, with a net outflow of RM135.3 million.

Edited by Surindran Murugiah