But certain categories like large-cap, high-yield and poor money market mutual funds weren't so lucky, Tjornehoj said.
Stock funds fared fairly well by bringing in $2.6 billion. Equity funds focused on companies outside the U.S. saw extra attention, adding $1.7 billion in net sales to nondomestic equity funds. In contrast, domestic equity mutual funds added — though not comparatively much —$900 million.
Meanwhile, core portfolio holdings such as those in Lipper’s Large-Cap Core and S&P 500 Index Objective categories "led the losers column" as "investors favored multi- and small-cap fund strategies instead". Large-Cap Core saw $255 million in outflows and S&P 500 Index Objective $147 million.
Equity exchange-traded funds also enjoyed net inflows, though only of $237 million. That was because "investors remained noncommittal to SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY)," Tjornehoj said, logging "an unremarkable outflow" of $696 million. Still, that was better than the leader in equity ETF outflows, SPDR Gold (GLD), which bid adieu to $1.4 billion.
Taxable bond funds enjoyed $1.2 billion in inflows, led by the corporate investment-grade group with $1.6 billion. Flexible funds also logged in just under $1 billion in flows. Finally, loan participation funds saw inflows of $863 million, down from $1.2 billion the week prior.
Meanwhile, high-yield funds saw their second week of outflows, letting go $70 million.
Municipal bond funds cut their inflows in half with only $230 million in net inflows.
"Muni activity was flat overall; no classification saw more than about $60 million of net flows in either direction," Tjornehoj said.
Saving the worst news for last, more boohoo for money market funds, assets of whichInvestment Company Institute estimates Thursday pegged at $2.657 trillion the week ended Feb. 20, down $23.8 billion from $2.681 trillion the week ended Feb. 13. For the week ended Feb. 20, Lipper data estimated money market fund outflows totaled $19 billion, "the highest weekly total since $23.5 billion was pulled from them the last week of October 2012."
