KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 25): Foreign buying of Malaysian equities swelled to RM550.9 million last week, which was 2.3 times higher than RM235.1 million the prior week.

In its weekly fund flow on Monday (Sept 25), MIDF Research said it was the highest net foreign inflow over the past eight weeks.

“They were net buyers every day last week, registering net purchases of over RM100 million daily except last Thursday (Sept 21) when the amount moderated to RM48.7 million after the Fed’s second skip of the year.

“The top three sectors that posted the highest net foreign inflows were utilities (RM197.0 million), transportation and logistics (RM110.1 million) and consumer products and services (RM72.8 million),” it said.

Meanwhile, MIDF said the only three sectors with net foreign outflows were industrial products and services (RM38.6 million), healthcare (RM37.5 million) and telecommunication and media (RM8.4 million).

The research house said that year-to-date, foreign investors have been net sellers, amounting to RM1.92 billion.

MIDF said local institutions maintained their net selling stance last week at RM472.5 million, which was the highest since a year ago during the week ended Aug 19, 2022 when they net sold RM675.9 million.

“They have been net sellers every day of the week, with a net selling streak of eight days.

“Year-to-date, local institutions have been net buyers totalling RM2.68 billion," it said.

MIDF said local retailers continued to net sell for the 11th straight week after disposing of RM78.4 million net last week.

It said the net selling trend has not been seen in recent years.

It said they net bought RM22.3 million last Thursday but were net sellers for the rest of the week.

“Year-to-date, retailers have net sold RM765.7 million.

“In terms of participation, there was a decrease in average daily trading volume (ADTV) among foreign investors by 39.9% last week while local retailers saw increase of 16.0% and local institutions  registered a rise of 14.0%,” it said.