KUALA LUMPUR: After seven consecutive weeks of net buying, foreign investors turned net sellers on Bursa Malaysia to the tune of RM163.64mil in the past week in tandem with a risk-off sentiment in global equities markets.
In its weekly fund flow report, MIDF Research noted equity markets worldwide were in the red over the last week on the back of worries over the new Covid-19 variant.
"To note, the new B.1.1.529 variant was identified last Tuesday and it has multiple mutations to its spike protein which could lead to evade immunisation," it said.
Bursa Malaysia's benchmark FBM KCLI also retreated 0.87%, with MIDF noting that the weaker performance was probably influenced by Malaysia's inflation outlook as well as its headline consumer price index accelerating to 2.9% growth year-on-year in October, slightly above market consensus.
Underpinned by the soft global and domestic sentiment, foreign investors were net sellers of domestic equities on every day of the previous week.
The largest net sell-off of local equities by foreign investors came on Monday to the tune of RM82.44mil.
In contrast, retailers were net buyers on every day of the week except for Friday, bringing its net weekly purchase of Bursa Malaysia equities to RM109.5mil. The largest net buying was recorded on Monday at RM45.11mil.
Local institutions meanwhile recorded cumulative weekly net selling to the tune of RM54.16mil while its largest net selling was seen on Thursday with RM16.3mil net sold.
"Since the beginning of 2021, cumulatively, retailers have been the only net buyers of our equity market to the tune of RM11.70bil.
"Local institutions and foreign investors were net sellers to the tune of -RM9.85b and -RM1.85bil, respectively," said MIDF.
Participation in Bursa Malaysia contracted over the week across all three investor categories.
Retail investors, local institutions and the foreign investors recorded a weekly decline of 14.03%, 9.83% and 11.32% respectively in average daily trade value.