Thursday 28 Mar 2024
By
main news image

KUALA LUMPUR (May 11): Investors classified as foreign sold equity listed in the open market on Bursa amounting to RM460.4 million on a net basis last week, compared with RM577.6 million the week before, according to MIDF Research.

In his weekly fund flow report today, MIDF Research head Zulkifli Hamzah said foreign investors were surprisingly net buyers, albeit marginally, when the market re-opened on Tuesday after a 4-day break.

However, he said the selling mode resumed in the rest of the week.

Zuklifli said foreign selling exceeded RM100 million on three straight days, namely Wednesday to Friday. 

“In the last two weeks, foreigner investors had offloaded RM1.04 billion in the open market. This has increased the cumulative net foreign outflow to RM3.66 billion. In comparison, the cumulative foreign outflow for the entire 2014 was RM6.93 billion.

“Foreign participation on Bursa stayed elevated for the second consecutive week. The daily average gross purchase and sale remained more than RM1 billion at RM1.1 billion,” he said. 

Zulkifli said local institutions came to the support of the market and absorbed RM453.8 million.

He said participation rate was RM2.14 billion last week and has averaged RM2.22 billion a day this year.

He explained that local institutions had absorbed RM4.69 billion net so far this year, adding that in 2014, they mopped up RM8.18 billion net.

“After seven straight weeks of selling, retailers made a marginal purchase last week amounted to RM6.6 million.

“However, participation rate plunged to only RM600 million, the lowest since the opening week of the year,” he said.

Zulkifli said it was apparent that risk aversion was high among retail investors and only those with strong conviction are in the market.

He said retailers had sold a cumulative RM1.0 billion net so far this year and had been net sellers in the last four years.

“The depressed state of the Malaysian retail market is in contrast with that in the majority of its peers in Asia,” he said.

Meanwhile, commenting on the region, Zulkifli said the global equity selloff last Thursday was a glimpse of what was in store in the month of May.

He said the market would be  characterized by heightened volatility as we progress over the next three weeks.

“The month of May is living up to its reputation. After the heavy beating in the final week of April, global equity  prices stayed languid last week, reflecting investors’ edginess over what lies ahead.

“The bellweather market, Wall Street, remained resilient, with the Dow Jones and S&P500 eking out a marginal 0.9% and 0.4% gain respectively last week,” he said.

Zulkifli said that perhaps the most noticeable index movement last week was China’s CSI300 -4% loss.

He said it was the first weekly decline in the index after eight consecutive weeks of increase during which the index added a massive 37%.

“Money flow was relatively calm in Asia last week. The outflow from Asian emerging markets ebbed after a high tide out the week before,” he said.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share