“Those investors who did not feel that cash would be the best place to end the year continued to look toward equity funds ( $3.0 billion net) and, more specifically, equity ETFs; that group accounted for $2.5 billion of the total inflows,” wrote Matthew Lemieux, senior analyst at Lipper.
“That said, equity mutual funds—reporting net sales of $508 million—were able to break a six-week outflow trend as heavy interest into emerging market funds ( $829 million net) helped overcome the continued losses seen in domestic equity products (-$751 million).”
Also, taxable bond funds rebounded from their previous week of redemptions and gained $936 million of net inflows, according to Lemieux. Corporate investment-grade debt products attracted roughly $1 billion in net new assets, while high-yield funds (-$159 million) were one of the few taxable groups ending the period with net redemptions.
Municipal bond funds posted a second consecutive week of net outflows at $421 million.
