As one would expect, in a week that saw the biggest one-day drop in US equities since last September, retail investors bailed on US stocks resulting in what BofA dubbed “risk-off flows” as $1.6 billion was pulled from global equities – with active managers once again getting the short end of the stick, with $4.3 billion in outflows from mutual funds, largest in 7 weeks while another $2.7 billion flowed into ETFs – offset by $9.7 billion inflows to bonds and $0.2 billion to gold.
That said, the bifurcation in equity flows has continued as European equity funds continued to see inflows for an 8th consecutive week (a $1.1 billion inflow) although the pace has slowed from a record level a week ago. The monthly data reveal that the asset class recorded the highest inflow since Dec’15 and the second positive in a row.
The flows reflect big asset allocation preference for EU disclosed previously in the Fund Managers Survey, shown below; rotation into EU from US ($8.9bn outflow) continues
As for the US, it could get worse: BofA’s Mike Hartnett notes that DC disruption presents a new risk as the Washington political malaise causes capital flight from US. YTD foreigners have bought $71.4bn US stocks, corporate bonds & government bonds. The question now is whether they will sell.
Looking across other asset classes, bonds saw solid inflows in the past week, with IG & HY inflows biggest in 6 weeks; YTD inflows to bonds of $154bn outpacing inflows to stocks of $125bn
Meanwhile, until Thursday’s Brazilian crash, money continued to flow into emerging markets, with EM seeing both debt ($1.6bn) & equity ($3.9bn) inflows this week; In fact, piggybacking on Gundlach’s emerging market enthusiasm, EMs are the YTD flow winner and YTD return winner (stocks +18%, bonds +7%) as the weaker dollar, lower yields overwhelm China credit fears.
Some other fund flows observations:
