KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 14): Foreign investors turned net buyers last week with a net inflow of RM749.34 million from an outflow of RM160.7 million the prior week.

In its weekly fund flow report on Monday (Feb 14), the MIDF Research team said foreign investors turned net buyers for the week ended Feb 11, influenced by Malaysia’s upbeat economic data for December, namely the Industrial Production Index which rose 5.8% year-on-year (y-o-y), distributive trade sales (up 3.5% y-o-y) and an economic growth (up 3.6% y-o-y in the fourth quarter of 2021).

“So far in 2022, international funds have been net buyers on Bursa for four out of six weeks. We note that last week, net buying by foreign investors was also the highest for the year.

"The previous highest net buying by foreigners was in the second week of January (the week ended Jan 14) with RM397.85 million,” MIDF said in the report on Monday.

It said foreign investors were net buyers every day of the week — again, the last time this occurred was in the week ended Jan 14 — with the largest foreign inflow being recorded last Wednesday at RM279.64 million and the smallest inflow last Monday at only RM21.82 million.

The pace of foreign investors' net inflow continued to be robust last Thursday and Friday, where net inflows amounted to RM228.44 million and RM165.36 million respectively.

Meanwhile, MIDF said local institutions were active sellers last week.

The largest net outflow was registered last Wednesday and the smallest last Monday, amounting to RM261.35 million and RM32.37 million respectively.

As for retailers, MIDF said the market saw them as net sellers every day of the week except last Monday, to the tune of RM10.55 million.

The largest net selling was recorded last Thursday at RM64.83 million, while the smallest net selling took place last Tuesday at RM8.44 million.

Overall, for the sixth week of 2022, foreign investors finished strong as net buyers.

Meanwhile, retailers and local institutions were net sellers at RM100.17 million and RM649.18 million respectively.

“On a year-to-date basis, we have observed RM1.052 billion in net inflows from foreign investors. Meanwhile, retailers' net buying is marginal at RM980,000, while local institutions are net sellers amounting to RM1.053 billion,” MIDF said.