LIPPER FUND FLOWS: WORST WEEK SINCE MID APRIL FOR EQUITY FUNDS

Three straight days of gains on both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the broader S&P 500 index couldn’t persuade retail investors to keep plowing money into equity mutual funds. Equity fund net flows for the flows week ended May 28th, 2014, topped out at $388 million for their worst week since mid-April in a generally dull week for fund flow totals everywhere.

REUTERS/Kham

Equity exchange-traded fund (ETF) investors also showed lackluster support for funds. They contributed a net $1.6 billion to their accounts after yanking $9.6 billion the previous week. This past week’s biggest recipient of ETF investors’ cash was SPDR S&P 500 (SPY), with net inflows of $1.9 billion. At the low end, (but not doing too badly) iShares Russell 2000 (IWM) posted net outflows of $389 million.

Taxable bond mutual fund investors continued to add money to their accounts. In fact, that group saw net inflows of $1.6 billion for the week (half the amount put up just two weeks prior) as benchmark yields hit 2014 lows. Lipper’s High Yield Funds group received an estimated $321 million net from investors this past week, while Loan Participation Funds had net outflows of $437 million—for the sixth week of outflows in the past seven weeks. The top destination for bond ETFs was ProShares Ultra 7-10 Year Treasury (UST), with net inflows of $319 million. Municipal bond mutual fund investors added a net $554 million to their accounts—for a fourth straight week of net inflows to the group. Money market funds saw net outflows of just $94 million (fundamentally on the zero line) of which institutional investors added $2.5 billion and retail investors redeemed $2.6 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: .