Funds Take in Almost $90 Billion of Net New Money for Q2 2017

Thomson Reuters Lipper’s fund macro-groups (including both mutual funds and ETFs) had positive net flows of $89.9 billion during second quarter 2017. The net inflows were paced by equity ETFs (+$58.7 billion) and taxable bond funds (mutual funds +$42.2 billion, ETFs +$30.2 billion). Municipal bond funds (mutual funds +$5.1 billion, ETFs +$1.1 billion) also contributed to the total net inflows, while money market funds (-$26.5 billion) and equity mutual funds (-$21.0 billion) both saw net money leave their coffers.

At the peer group level the positive net flows for equity ETFs were dominated by Lipper’s International Multi-Cap Core Funds (+$21.8 billion), European Region Funds (+$11.0 billion), and Emerging Market Funds (+$8.9 billion) categories. The largest net inflows for taxable bond funds (mutual funds and ETFs combined) belonged to the Core Bond Funds (+$16.8 billion), Multi-Sector Income Funds (+$13.3 billion), and Core Plus Bond Funds (+$7.5 billion) peer groups. For municipal bond funds (mutual funds and ETFs combined) the High Yield Muni Debt Funds (+$2.0 billion), Intermediate Muni Debt Funds (+$1.9 billion), and General & Insured Muni Debt Funds (+$1.6 billion) groups took in the most net new money for the quarter. Domestic equity funds (-$28.0 billion) were responsible for all the outflows for equity mutual funds, while nondomestic equity mutual funds had positive net flows of $7.1 billion. In the money market space the overall net outflows were driven by U.S. Government Money Market Funds (-$14.3 billion) and Institutional U.S. Government Money Market Funds (-$13.9 billion).

At the fund level three of the five largest net inflows for Q2 belonged to Vanguard Group products. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (+$15.4 billion), Vanguard 500 Index Fund (+$9.2 billion), and Vanguard Total International Bond Index Fund (+$8.4 billion) accounted for $33.0 billion in combined positive flows. Rounding out the top five funds were Dreyfus Government Cash Management (+$12.3 billion) and iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (+$10.8 billion). The largest net outflows for the quarter belonged to SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust and Goldman Sachs Financial Square Government Fund, which each saw approximately $10.3 billion leave.