U.S. mutual fund investors spurred equity funds for the eighth consecutive week, withdrawing $2.4 billion from the funds for the week ended Oct. 4, according to U.S. weekly fund flow data compiled by Lipper.
Domestic equity funds bore the brunt of the outflows, with $2.6 billion withdrawn, noted Jeff Tjornehoj, head of Lipper Americas Research. “Even Lipper’s highly favored Equity Income Funds group saw another outflow for the week, albeit a scant half-million dollars’ worth,” Tjornehoj said.
This week’s $2.4 billion withdrawal from U.S. domiciled equity funds is the 10th time in the past 11 weeks that investors had taken money out of the funds and also marked the largest pull-out from equity funds in the last two months, he noted. Interestingly, during that same 11-week span, the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index has risen 8.45%.
On the other side of the investing coin, fixed income funds showed a healthier hue for the week. U.S. taxable bond funds took in about $2.4 billion for a 13th straight week of new inflows; corporate investment-grade debt funds took in $1 billion; and international and global debt funds took in about $470 million.
Of course, investors were still showing some risk-aversion to certain fixed income funds as high-yield funds were hit with $400 million in outflows.
Also, tax-exempt funds had inflows of about $550 million, while money market funds saw redemptions of about $9 billion.
