Foreign investors on a selling spree, pull out a staggering RM5.83 billion in May
(The Star) – Foreign investors have pulled out a total of RM5.83 billion from Bursa Malaysia as foreign funds continued its selling spree.
“For the month of May, foreigners withdrew RM5.83 billion net, the highest monthly outflow in 2018 thus far,” MIDF Research said in its weekly fund flow report.
“Meanwhile, the year-to-date outflow from Malaysia is RM2.12 billion or US$530.7 million net, which is still the lowest among the four Asean markets that we track,” the research house said.
MIDF said Malaysian equities experienced the fifth week of foreign selling, the longest selling binge recorded so far this year.
With foreign selling on every single day of the week, the selling streak has extended to 19 days, the longest since the 21-day binge in May to June 2015.
MIDF said Monday’s attrition stood at RM216.5 million, a level which is normal at this juncture.
However, foreign funds pulled out RM609.2 million net on Wednesday, the highest in a day since May 15, 2018 after Tuesday’s break following the cancellation of the MRT3 project.
MIDF noted that the heavy selloff was also in conformity with other Asian peers namely, Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan amid the political upheaval in Italy and Spain.
The FBM KLCI settled at 1,719 points on the same day after plunging by 3.18%, the biggest daily drop since 2008.
The attrition on Thursday later shrank to RM217.9 milionl net following efforts to form a coalition government in Italy, coinciding with the FBM KLCI’s 1.24% gain.
Attrition levels were little changed on Friday at RM225.2 million net as investors waited for the next round of trade talks between the U.S and China over the weekend.
Foreign participation spiked as the foreign average daily trade value (ADTV) surged by 174% to an all-time high of RM4.25bil.
This was mainly attributable to the MSCI rebalancing on Thursday which boosted the total trading value on Bursa to a record high of RM9bil.
Meanwhile, Top Glove Corp Bhd registered the highest net money inflow of RM15.93 million last week.
British American Tobacco recorded the second highest net money inflow of RM8.96 million while Tenaga Nasional Bhd saw the third highest net money inflow of RM8.09 million last week.
On the other hand, Genting Bhd saw the largest net money outflow of RM12.46 million.
Hong Leong Bank recorded the second largest net money outflow of RM11.24 million while Public Bank registered the third largest net money outflow at RM6.37 million.
