KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 3): Foreign selling of Malaysian equities snapped after five consecutive weeks of an outflow as international investors acquired RM17.77 million net of local equities during the final week of 2021, compared to RM38.16 million net sold in the week before. 

In the weekly fund flow report on Monday (Jan 3), MIDF Research's Shahira Rahim said that international funds were net buyers for a total of 22 weeks in 2021.

“As the market reopened last Monday, local institutions and foreign investors were net buyers respectively, amounting to RM2.73 million and RM56.73 million. Meanwhile, foreign retailers were net sellers to the tune of RM59.46 million.

“Foreign investors were net buyers for [the] majority of the week except last Wednesday and Friday. The largest foreign inflow was recorded last Tuesday, which came in at RM110.37 million,” she said.

Shahira added that retailers were net sellers every day of last week, a reverse from the trend the firm saw throughout 2021. 

“The largest net selling by retailers was recorded last Friday at RM105.28 million. For the week, retailers net sold RM292.59 million worth of equities on Bursa. To note, this was the second week retailers recorded net selling after nine consecutive weeks of an inflow,” she explained.

Meanwhile, Shahira said local institutions recorded cumulative weekly net buying to the tune of RM274.82 million, with local institutions as net buyers for the week except last Tuesday at RM56.39 million, while the largest net buying last Friday was to the tune of RM217.98 million.

For the cumulative 2021, Shaira said retailers were the only net buyers of the country’s equity market to the tune of RM12.14 billion. 

“Meanwhile, local institutions and foreign investors were net sellers to the tune of RM8.99 billion and RM3.15 billion respectively. 

“In terms of participation, retail investors, local institutions and foreign investors recorded weekly movements of 12.85%, 26.32% and -12.3% respectively in average daily trade value,” she added.

On a related note, Shahira said Nestlé (Malaysia) Bhd registered the highest net money inflow of RM5.18 million last week, followed by Top Glove Corp Bhd, which saw the second highest net money inflow of RM2.77 million, while Sime Darby Bhd saw the third highest net money inflow of RM2.52 million.

On the other hand, Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) saw the largest net money outflow of RM4.01 million last week. This was followed by MyEG Services Bhd, having recorded the second largest net money outflow RM2.86 million during the week, while CIMB Group Holdings Bhd registered the third largest net money outflow of RM2.14 million.

According to MIDF Research, the majority of equity markets worldwide ended in the green zone last week despite concerns about inflationary pressures in 2022.

The research firm said it is worth noting that among the markets that it tracked, the FBM KLCI was the top performer last week, rising further by 3.37% to close at 1,567.53 points.

Shahira said the better performance of the local bourse was on the back of upbeat economic data, namely Malaysia’s Leading Index which expanded for the second consecutive month, albeit at a slower pace of 0.3% year-on-year (y-o-y) in October 2021.

This, she added, was in addition to Malaysia’s total trade, which grew further by 34.9% y-o-y to a record high of RM205.5 billion in November 2021, following sustained expansion in both exports and imports.

“While keeping our gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for 2021 unchanged at 3.7%, we predict the growth outlook will be better, with Malaysia’s GDP to grow at 6% in 2022. 

“The momentum of recovery is expected to continue as the economic reopening will support continued growth in domestic consumption activity. 

“Furthermore, we expect the improving business outlook and growing demand to drive businesses to increase production and investment activities next year,” added Shahira.