FOREIGN investors sold RM1.6 billion of Malaysian equities in September 2022 as they also exited the region except for Indonesia, reports Maybank IBG Research.

This lowered their net buy for January-September 2022 to RM6.6 billion, compared to net outflow of RM3.2 billion in the same period in 2021, but lifted their cumulative net sell since early-2010 to RM29.4 billion.

Year-to-date, it said foreign investors were net sellers in 15 out of 35 weeks, with the market foreign shareholding at 20.6% as at end-September 2022.

On the bond front, the report noted that after two months of selling, foreign funds turned net buyer with RM5.6 billion inflows into Ringgit Malaysia bonds in August 2022, reversing out July’s RM3.5 billion outflow amid the rally in global risk assets and relative stability compared to the wild swings in UST. September data is not available yet.

This reduced YTD cumulative outflows of RM bonds to RM1.2 billion and total foreign holdings rose back up to RM255.4 billion at end-August 2022. — TMR