"2018 had been of little doubt a turbulent year, underscored by worries over US-China trade relations and growth among others," said Jingyi Pan, a Singapore-based market strategist at trading and investments provider IG. Taiwan led regional equities outflows with net sales of $11.7 billion last year, followed by Thailand and South Korea which saw outflows of $8.9 billion and $5.6 billion, respectively.
Net foreign flows turned negative for the first time in three years in 2018.
In a tit-for-tat trade war, the United States and China imposed tariffs on each other's imports last year, which triggered concerns about the region's growth outlook and pulled down Asia's major stock indexes.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 16 percent in 2018, its sharpest drop since 2011. Chinese shares were the biggest losers in the region, shedding about 29 percent in dollar terms.
Regional economic growth is expected to cool further in 2019 amid softening domestic and export demand, but much will depend on how long it will take China to stabilize its cooling economy and whether Washington and Beijing can end their trade war. In China, the Caixin/IHS Markit PMI slipped into contraction territory in December for the first time in 19 months.