KUALA LUMPUR (May 5): Foreign investors continued to be net buyers for the week ended April 30, albeit with a lower total net inflow of RM131.2 million, compared with RM247.62 million previously.

In its weekly fund flow report on Thursday (May 5), the MIDF Research team said local retailers maintained their net buying position at RM58.8 million, while local institutions continued their net selling streak at RM190 million last week.

It said that to date, international funds had been net buyers for 14 out of 17 weeks of 2022, with a total net inflow of RM7.3 billion.

“They were net buyers in the [whole] week except last Monday with an outflow of RM44.3 million.

“Net buying activities primarily occurred last Tuesday and Thursday with inflows of RM 71.6 million and RM70.7 million respectively,” it said.

MIDF said local institutions were net buyers only last Friday at RM22.3 million.

“They have been net sellers for 12 consecutive weeks since the week ended Feb 11 and have been net sellers for 15 out of 17 weeks this year.

“To date, they have sold RM8 billion of equities,” it said.

The research house said local retailer movements remained mixed last week with three days of net buying from Monday to Wednesday and net selling from Thursday onwards.

“Year-to-date, local retailers have been net buyers at RM672.7 million.

“In terms of participation, foreign investors saw an increase in average daily trade value by 5.56%, followed by local institutions and local retailers at 3.62% and 2.26% respectively.

Commenting on regional markets, MIDF said US markets dived last Friday, marking their deepest daily losses since 2020, attributed to Amazon’s gloomy quarterly report and the highest surge in monthly inflation since 2005.

It said the Hang Seng Index led the Asian region to close the trading week in the green 2.18% higher at 21,089.39 as China hinted at an easing of its crackdown on the once-freewheeling tech sector last Friday.