KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is still the second lowest country with foreign capital outflow amongst the Asean markets, despite the year-to-date (YTD) outflow standing at RM8.6 billion as of last Friday.
MIDF Research said global portfolio investors left Bursa Malaysia last week after two weeks of foreign buying, noting that as of August, foreign net outflow was at RM128.6 million.
“Based on preliminary data from local bourse, which excluded off market deals, international funds offloaded RM631.4 million net of local equities, wiping out the foreign net inflow of RM458.2 million recorded in the week before,” it said in a fund flow report today.
The research firm said offshore investors were already selling a lot on Monday to a tune of RM142.3 million net as the crisis in Turkey rippled across emerging markets including Malaysia.
“It came to no surprise that local stocks with exposure to Turkey such as Malaysia Airports Holdings and IHH Healthcare were the major decliners that day with losses of more than 5.0 per cent,” it added.
MIDF Research said the level of foreign net attrition later slowly tapered on Tuesday and Wednesday to RM127.1 million and RM85.4 million respectively as the Turkish lira rebounded from Monday’s massive drop.
It noted that FBM KLCI even followed suit to advance on these two days while other regional markets such as Thailand and Hong Kong were in the red zone during the same period.
However, foreign net selling activity gradually accelerated on Thursday and Friday to RM127.9 million and RM148.7 million respectively.
This was due to news on China and the U.S holding trade discussions in late August was not sufficient to spur risk-on mood following the announcement of Malaysia’s lower-than-expected in the second-quarter 2018 gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 4.5 per cent YoY against market expectations of 5.2 per cent YoY.
The research house said the participation amongst foreign investors have been active so far this year as their weekly average daily traded value (ADTV) reached above RM1 billion for 31 out of 33 weeks.
The weekly average daily trading volume (ADTV) of the retail market and local institutional funds also remained healthy above RM800 million and RM2 billion respectively despite the drop last week.
Among the top 10 net money inflows include United Plantations Bhd, CIMB Group Holdings Bhd and Top Glove Corp Bhd, registering the highest net money inflow of RM10.90 million, RM9.64 million and RM7.99 million.
Meanwhile, among the top 10 net money outflow include the Malayan Banking Bhd, Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd and Genting Bhd, recording the largest net money outflow of RM22.09 million, RM21.88 million and RM15.18 million, respectively.