KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 25 — Foreign investors continued to net sell Malaysian equities for the second consecutive week to the tune of RM168.5 million last week, more than three times higher than the amount net sold during the week ended Jan 13.

MIDF Research said Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has unexpectedly maintained its Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) at 2.75 per cent on Thursday and its economists believed the rate might be raised by another 25 basis points at the upcoming Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting in March as core inflation remains elevated.

"Year to date, foreigners have net sold RM142.9 million of Malaysian equities,” it said in a note today.

It said the week ended Jan 20 saw only net foreign inflows on Tuesday to the tune of RM85.4 million and the remaining four days of the week saw net selling by the foreigners.

"Heaviest net selling came in on Wednesday, a day before the BNM’s MPC meeting, amounting to RM114.6 million,” it said.

The research house noted that top three sectors that saw net foreign inflows last week were energy (RM31.0 million), healthcare (RM30.5 million) and technology (RM21.3 million), while the top three sectors that saw net foreign outflows were financial services (-RM272.4 million), industrial products and services (-RM9.9 million) and transportation and logistics (-RM2.4 million).

Meanwhile, it said local institutions remained net buyers for the second consecutive week after net buying RM391.6 million worth of equities last week and every trading day was a net buying day except for Tuesday which saw a net outflow of RM64.3 million by the local institutions.

"Local institutions have been net buyers of domestic equities so far this year with a total net inflow of RM606.5 million,” it said.

As for local retailers, MIDF Research said they have net sold RM223.1 million last week, slightly lower than RM292.6 million that were net sold during the week ended Jan 13.

"Every trading day was a net selling day by the local retailers last week with the heaviest net selling recorded on Friday at RM79.1 million, this could be due to profit taking ahead of the Chinese New Year holidays,” it said.

Year to date, it pointed out that local retailers have net sold RM463.6 million of Malaysian equities.

In terms of participation, the research house added that there was a decrease in average daily trading volume among local retailers (-10.5 per cent), local institutions (-10.3 per cent) and foreign investors (-11.9 per cent). — Bernama