Lipper Fund Flows: Mass Exit For Equity Funds

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was knocked down in four of the five trading days this past week, which was enough to turn off equity mutual fund investors; they pulled $1.6 billion net for the flows week ended March 25, 2015. Their favorite fund classifications for the week tended to be those focused on overseas strategies, such as International Multi-Cap Value Funds (+$729 million) and International Small-/Mid-Cap Value Funds (+$348 million); Large-Cap Core Funds continued to bear the brunt of the selling with a net outflow of $1.4 billion.

In contrast, institutional investors pumped $7.3 billion into exchange-traded funds (ETFs)—another solid showing after the previous week’s $8.5 billion of inflows. The latest week’s biggest ETF individual recipients were S&P 500 (SPY, +$2.3 billion) and iShares Russell 2000 (IWM, +$841 million), while investors pared back their ownership of Select Sector SPDR Consumer Staples (XLP, -$555 million).

Taxable bond mutual fund investors added money to their accounts for the twelfth week in a row; that group of funds saw net inflows of $1.1 billion as investors pumped cash mostly into Lipper’s Core Plus Bond Funds and Global Income Funds classifications. Mutual funds in the Core Plus group led the parade with net inflows of $1.2 billion. Investors had doubts about Loan Participation Funds (-$237 million) and High Yield Funds (-$190 million). The week’s top individual destination for bond ETF investors was iShares iBoxx $IG Corporate (LQD), with inflows of $560 million. Municipal bond mutual fund investors added $498 million to their accounts for the largest net inflows since those of the week ended January 28, 2015. Money market funds saw inflows of $13.0 billion, of which institutional investors added $14.7 billion and retail investors removed $1.7 billion.

For more information on this week’s Lipper fund flows data, please refer to Lipper’s U.S. Fund Flows website or this video.