Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 29): Foreign investors continued to nibble at stocks listed on the local bourse last week, according to MIDF Research.

In his weekly fund flow report today, MIDF Research head Zulkifli Hamzah said the rate of purchase was relatively unchanged from that the week before, reflecting hesitation on the part of the investors to commit in a sizeable way, clearly in the absence of a market catalyst.

He said last week’s foreign purchase of equities listed on Bursa amounted to RM225.3 million in net of sales, slightly lower than the RM283.3 million bought the week before.

“There was little to be excited about. Foreigners were net buyers on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

“On Thursday, the amount bought rose to RM120.1 million, the third highest in February, but was still a distance away compared with the highest single-day foreign haul this year of RM706.1 million on Jan 28,” he said.

Zulkifli said last week’s purchases reduced the cumulative year-to-date foreign fund outflow for 2016 to only RM404.8 million.

He explained that for the entire 2015, the net outflow was RM19.5 billion.

“Foreign participation rate (average daily traded value of shares) rose marginally to RM941.1 million, from RM936 million the week before.

“It remained below RM1 billion for the third consecutive week.

“However, we note that participation surged to RM1.23 billion on Friday, the highest in 16 trading days,” he said.

Zulkifli said that local institutions offloaded RM322 million last week.

He said the institutions would be looking to dispose some more listed equities, as they had mopped up RM21.2 billion on Bursa last year.

He said participation rate remained moderate at RM1.94 billion last week, the third week in a row that it has been at RM2 billion.

“Retail activity normalised to that before the Chinese New Year level.

“Retailers bought RM96.9 million, as participation rose to RM620.9 million, the highest in four weeks,” he said.

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