Foreign investors continued to net sell Malaysian equities for the second consecutive week last week to the tune of -RM168.5m. This was more than 3x higher than the amount net sold during the week ended January 13.
However, MIDF economists believe that the OPR might be raised by another 25 basis points at the upcoming Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in Mar-23 as core inflation remains elevated. Year-to date, foreigners have net sold -RM142.9m of Malaysian equities.
The week also saw only net foreign inflows only on Tuesday to the tune of RM85.4m. The other four days of the week saw net selling by foreigners. Heaviest net selling came in on Wednesday, a day before the BNM’s MPC meeting. The net selling on that day amounted to -RM114.6m.
The top three sectors that saw net foreign inflows last week were Energy (RM31.0m), Healthcare (RM30.5m) and Technology (RM21.3m), while the top three sectors that saw net foreign outflows were Financial Services (-RM272.4m), Industrial Products & Services (-RM9.9m) and Transportation & Logistics (-RM2.4m).
Local institutions remained net buyers for the second consecutive week after net buying RM391.6m worth of equities last week. Every trading day was a net buying day except for Tuesday which saw a net outflow of -RM64.3m by the local institutions. Local institutions have been net buyers of domestic equities so far this year with a total net inflow of RM606.5m.
Meanwhile, local retailers have net sold -RM223.1m last week, slightly lower than the -RM292.6m that were net sold during the week ended January 13. Every trading day was a net selling day by the local retailers last week with the heaviest net selling recorded on Friday at -RM79.1m. This could be due to profit taking ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday. Year-to-date, local retailers have net sold -RM463.6m of Malaysian equities.
In terms of participation, there was a decrease in average daily trading volume (ADTV) among local retailers (-10.5%), local institutions (-10.3%) and foreign investors (-11.9%).
