Market, Mortgage Concerns Prompt Investors to Flee Equity, Bond Funds

Amid the market turmoil prompted by mortgage concerns, investors are fleeing equity and bond funds and moving into money market funds and U.S. Treasuries, The New York Times reports.

While all mutual fund sectors have been hard hit, some of the worst casualties are small-cap value, real estate and high-yield funds. In the past month, for example, small-cap value funds have tumbled 7.5%, real estate investment trusts have fallen 6% and high-yield funds have given up 2.3%.

“It’s pretty unusual to see this kind of drop in small-cap value funds,” said Russell Kinnell, director of fund research at Morningstar. “In past downturns, those funds have owned stodgy, boring little businesses and stocks that do not have a lot of price risk. But this time, they owned banks, mortgage insurance companies—and that was really the problem.”

According to AMG Data Services, in the week ended last Wednesday, $439 million flowed out of high-yield bond funds, the ninth week of outflows, while $36.2 billion went to money market funds, the largest amount since December 2005.

The staff of Money Management Executive ("MME") has prepared these capsule summaries based on reports published by the news sources to which they are attributed. Those news sources are not associated with MME, and have not prepared, sponsored, endorsed, or approved these summaries.