Reuters: US Dollar Report: Institutional, retail investors enter equity funds-Lipper

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Institutional, retail investors enter equity funds-Lipper Jul 19th 2012, 21:41 Thu Jul 19, 2012 5:41pm EDT July 19 (Reuters) - Institutional and retail investors bought into equity funds in the week ended July 18, as the European debt crisis remained quiet and companies posted better-than-expected earnings, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday. Equity funds recorded net inflows of $6.089 billion. Of that, $5.697 billion came from net buying of exchange-traded funds, the data showed, a contrast to the net outflows of $2 billion in the previous week. Excluding ETFs, retail investors bought a net $392 million of equity funds. ETFs are generally believed to represent the investment behavior of institutional investors, while mutual funds are thought to represent the retail investor. "We saw generally good performance across the board with what we considered muted news out of the euro zone and generally good earnings reports," said Matthew Lemieux, research analyst at Lipper. "We saw a general shift back toward equities." The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 2.34 percent over the reporting period, touching its highest since early May as corporate profits from bellwethers Intel and Honeywell defied fears of a collapse in earnings. Money market funds, despite net gains in the prior week, saw outflows of $18.65 billion, continuing the losses seen for much of the year. Taxable bond funds, something of a safe haven in the record low interest rate environment, saw net inflows of $2.8 billion, the second straight week of gains. Still, most of those inflows came from retail investors, who poured $2.6 billion into the funds. Only about $217 million came from institutional investors. Corporate high-yield funds notched inflows for a sixth straight week, with net buying of $821 million. Investment grade corporate bond funds pulled in a net $1.05 billion, just barely below last week's inflows. Municipal bond funds had net inflows of $837 million. Excluding ETFs, equity income funds pulled in a net $628 million, up from the $146 million in the previous week. The figure rises to a net inflow of $796 million when ETFs are included. Equity income funds have provided an alternative method of gaining returns for yield-hungry investors balking at record low interest rates. The weekly Lipper fund flow data is compiled from reports issued by U.S.-domiciled mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. The following is a broad breakdown of the flows for the week, including exchange-traded funds (in $ billions): Sector Flow Chg % Assets Count ($Bil) Assets ($Bil) All Equity Funds 6.089 0.23 2,753.696 10,256 Domestic Equities 5.916 0.29 2,108.214 7,668 Non-Domestic Equities 0.173 0.03 645.482 2,588 All Taxable Bond Funds 2.795 0.19 1,444.575 4,692 All Money Market Funds -18.651 -0.82 2,256.768 1,417 All Municipal Bond Funds 0.837 0.28 305.261 1,352 Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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