The estimated U.S. mutual fund asset flows for July 2013 were released by Morningstar. Investors added $15.9 billion to long-term mutual funds in July, driven by inflows of $7.9 billion into international-equity funds.
Outflows from taxable-bond funds ebbed to $1.3 billion after record outflows of $43.7 billion in June. Bank-loan and nontraditional bond funds at the expense of more traditional intermediate-term bond categories continue to be favored by investors. Morningstar estimates net flow by computing the change in assets not explained by the performance of the fund.
Additional findings from Morningstar’s report:
• Detroit’s bankruptcy filing kept municipal-bond funds in heavy redemptions; the category group lost $10.3 billion in July, which marks the fifth straight month of outflows.
• Value offerings led the way among equity funds, which was likely a result of yield-starved fixed-income investors seeking dividend income. Large-value funds collected $3.3 billion, the category’s strongest inflow since February 2007.
• JPMorgan led all providers with inflows of $3.4 billion. Dimensional Fund Advisors, Oakmark, Principal Funds, and MFS have also gained market share over the last year.
• PIMCO Total Return investors pulled $7.5 billion in July, its third month of outflows. The previous three months has seen outflows of $18.4 billion from the fund compared with inflows of $21.5 billion over the 16-month period from January 2012 through April 2013.
