KUALA LUMPUR (May 22): Foreign selling of Malaysian equities widened to RM211 million last week from RM46.4 million the prior week, pushing year-to-date outflow to RM2.39 billion.
In its weekly fund flow report on Monday (May 22), the MIDF Research team said every trading day last week was a net selling day by foreigners except for last Thursday (May 18), which saw a net foreign inflow of RM38.5 million.
“The day saw foreign investors picking up counters such as Malayan Banking Bhd (RM16.9 million), Top Glove Corp Bhd (RM9.9 million), IHH Healthcare Bhd (RM9.8 million) and Inari Amertron Bhd (RM8.2 million).
“They turned net sellers last Friday when the data released by the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) showed a decline in trade growth by 14.5% year-on-year in April 2023, largely due to lower domestic exports,” it said.
MIDF said the only three sectors that saw net foreign inflows were transportation and logistics (RM37.4 million), technology (RM3.3 million) and healthcare (RM1.9 million), while the top three sectors that saw net foreign outflows were consumer products and services (RM70 million), industrial products and services (RM40.5 million) and financial services (RM32.5 million).
The research house said local institutional investors remained net buyers for the fourth consecutive week to the tune of RM355.6 million or about seven times higher than the amount net bought during the previous week.
“Every trading day was a net buying day by the local institutions, with the heaviest net inflow recorded last Tuesday at RM105.3 million.
“Year-to-date, they have been net buyers for 15 out of 20 weeks, with a total net inflow of RM2.45 billion,” it said.
MIDF said Malaysian equities saw continued net selling by the local retailers for the third consecutive week, amounting to RM144.6 million.
It said every trading day was a net selling day by the local retailers, with the heaviest outflow recorded last Thursday at RM65.1 million.
“Year-to-date, local retailers have been net sellers for 11 out of 20 weeks, resulting in a total net outflow of RM51.2 million.
“In terms of participation, there was a decline in average daily trading volume (ADTV) across the board — retailers (4.8%), local institutions (5.6%) and foreigners (10.5%),” it said.
Commenting on the international situation, MIDF said it was a week dominated by optimism surrounding the debt ceiling in the US where investors remained hopeful of a bipartisan deal to raise the US$31 trillion (RM141 trillion) debt ceiling to steer the US government out of a potential debt default.
It said this, coupled with upbeat tech earnings, saw strong interests in mega tech stocks on Wall Street, especially the Matana (Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, Alphabet, Nvidia and Amazon) stocks, which anchored the weekly gains of the S&P 500 by 1.65% to 4,191.98 and the Nasdaq Composite Index by 3.04% to 12,657.9 points, levels not seen since August 2022.
“These came ahead of a data-driven week this week, which will see the release of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting minutes, the second release of the 1QCY2023 (first quarter of calendar year 2023) GDP data, the S&P Global Manufacturing PMI and Services PMI and the core PCE, which is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge.
“Out of the 20 major indices that we track globally, 15 ended the week positively, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 topping the list with a 4.83% growth, Taiwan’s Taiex (4.34%) and the Nasdaq Composite Index (3.04%).
“Thailand was once again the biggest decliner of the week at 2.98%, followed by Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (0.9%) and India’s Sensex (0.48%). The FBM KLCI inched upwards by 0.39%,” it said.