Nearly RM750 million net inflow last week in new high for the year

Foreign investors turned net buyers for the week ended Feb 11 with a net inflow of RM749.34 million compared with a net outflow of RM160.70 million in the preceding week, influenced by upbeat economic data, MIDF Research said.

The brokerage said the data includes Malaysia’s Industrial Production Index, which moderated to +5.8% year-on-year (yoy) in December 2021, Malaysia’s distributive trade sales growth at +3.5% yoy in December 2021, and gross domestic product which advanced by +3.6% in the fourth quarter of 2021.

“So far in 2022, international funds have been net buyers on Bursa Malaysia for four out of six weeks.

“We noted that last week’s net buying by foreign investors was also the highest so far this year,” it said in a note today.

MIDF Research said the previous highest net buying by foreigners was in the second week of January at RM397.85 million.

Meanwhile, it said foreigners were net buyers every day of the week. The last time this occurred was in the week ending Jan 14, 2021.

The largest foreign inflow was recorded on Wednesday at RM279.64 million and the smallest inflow was on Monday at RM21.82 million.

It said the pace of net inflow from foreign investors continued to be robust on Thursday and Friday, with net inflows of RM228.44m and RM165.36 million, respectively.

For the week, MIDF Research said local institutions were active sellers, with the largest net outflow on Wednesday and the smallest on Monday amounting to -RM261.35 million and -RM32.37 million, respectively.

It said the market saw retailers as net sellers every day of the week except on Monday at RM10.55 million.

“The largest net selling was recorded on Thursday at -RM64.83 million while the smallest net selling was on Tuesday at -RM8.44 million,” it said.

Overall, the brokerage said foreign investors finished strong as net buyers to the tune of RM749.34 million for the sixth week of 2022, while retailers and local institutions were net sellers at -RM100.17 million and -RM649.18 million, respectively.

“On a year-to-date basis, we observed RM1.052 billion in net inflows from foreign investors,” it said, adding that retailers’ net buying was marginal at RM0.98 million while local institutions were net sellers amounting to -RM1.053 billion.