PETALING JAYA: Bursa Malaysia registered its 10th straight week of foreign outflows, marking its longest streak this year, during a holiday-shortened trading period.
For the week ended Dec 27, foreign investors net sold RM231.9mil worth of shares on the local exchange, with outflows recorded every day of the Christmas-shortened trading week, according to MIDF Research.
In its latest fund flow report, the brokerage noted that Malaysia, along with India, were the only two countries in Asia to experience net foreign fund outflows last week.
This contrasted with the trend in eight other Asian markets, which collectively recorded net foreign inflows amounting to US$1.63bil during the same period.
In Malaysia, the sectors which recorded the highest net foreign outflows were utilities (RM119.5mil), followed by construction (RM88.5mil) and healthcare (RM68.1mil).
In contrast, the sectors with the highest net foreign inflows were property (RM36.6mil), industrial products and services (RM31.2mil) and financial services (RM29.6mil).
Local institutions remained the main support for the local bourse for the 10th consecutive week, with net purchases totalling RM416.9mil in domestic equities.
“They net bought every day last week and have been net buying for 27 straight trading days,” MIDF Research stated.
It highlighted that local retailers turned net sellers of domestic equities, recording RM185mil in net disposals after a brief period of net buying last week.
“The average daily trading volume saw declines across the board last week. Foreign investors saw a dip of 60.2%, while local retailers and local institutions saw declines of 30.6% and 38.9%, respectively,” MIDF Research said.
Despite the foreign outflows, the FBM KLCI saw an upturn in technical momentum last week on window-dressing activities.
The benchmark index gained a total of 36.73 points to close at 1,628.14 points for the week ended Dec 27.
TA Research in its note said last week’s upturn in technical momentum and trend indicators on the FBM KLCI suggested that the index would continue to recover this week, after being in consolidation mode over the previous weeks.
