Stock Funds Lose $11B. Bond Funds Gain It.
October 11, 2012
The number: $11 billion.
The message: What investors take out of stock funds they give to bond funds.
That, at least, appeared to be the case in the week ending October 3 that could be drawn from fund flow statistics released by the Investment Company Institute.
Equity funds had estimated outflows of $11.08 billion for the week. Bond funds had estimated inflows of $10.87 billion.
The flight from stock funds has been picking up steam. In the week ending September 12, investors pulled out $3.3 billion. A week later, $5.1 billion. In the week ending September 26, $7.5 billion. And now, the $11 billion, with $10.6 billion coming out of domestic stock funds.
By comparison, taxable bond funds took in $8.1 billion and municipal bond funds $2.8 billion. The total: $10.87 billion.
Hybrid funds had estimated inflows of $2.26 billion for the week, compared to estimated outflows of $386 million in the previous week.
The hybrids, which invest in both stocks and bonds, meant that, for the week, mutual funds had net inflows of $2.05 billion, overall.
