In its fund flow report for the week ended Sept 1, 2023, the research firm said that external funds offloaded RM113.5 million during the shortened trading week.
The local bourse and its subsidiaries were closed for the National Day Holiday on Thursday.
“They net bought RM12.1 million on Monday and RM53.6 million on Tuesday before net selling RM139.4 million on Wednesday and RM39.8 million on Friday,” it said.
The top three sectors that saw net foreign inflows were property (RM142.5 million), construction (RM40.4 million) and technology (RM30 million).
Meanwhile, the bottom three sectors which saw net foreign outflows for the week were healthcare (-RM144 million), industrial products and services (-RM82.2 million) and consumer products and services (-RM60.5 million).
These brought the year-to-date (YTD) foreign net selling to RM2.68 billion.
Local retail investors also remained as net sellers of local equities last week at RM77.8 million
“They only net bought RM35.9 million on Wednesday but were net sellers on Monday (-RM52.1 million), Tuesday (-RM36.5 million) and Friday (-RM25 million), bringing their YTD net selling to RM550.7 million,” it noted.
Meanwhile, local institutional investors maintained their net buying stance for the third consecutive week, snapping up RM191.3 million, according to the research firm.
MIDF Research said local investors only net sold RM17.1 million on Tuesday but were net buyers on Monday (RM40 million), Wednesday (RM103.5 million) and Friday (RM64.8 million).
“YTD, local institutions have net bought RM3.23 billion on equities on Bursa Malaysia,” it said.
In terms of participation, the research firm said the average daily trading volume among foreign, retail and institutional investors rose by 94.3%, 38.4% and 44.9%, respectively.
MIDF Research noted that overall, Asian markets saw a net foreign fund outflow of US$5.61 billion (RM25.12 billion) last month, snapping three consecutive months of net foreign inflows.
“This was also the highest net outflow amount since September 2022, which recorded a net outflow of US$9.60 billion (RM42.98 billion),” it said, adding that India and Malaysia were the only exceptions with net inflows of US$1.48 billion (RM6.63 billion) and US$31.3 million (RM140.13 million), respectively.