Investors Shun U.S. Equity Despite Its Return Lead

Net inflows to stock and bond mutual funds and exchange-traded products totaled $12.9 billion in July, data from Strategic Insight, an Asset International company, shows.

Among actively managed funds, growth-oriented International Equity funds again led inflows to long-term products during the month, attracting $4.7 billion. Monthly outflows from U.S. Equity funds totaled $12.1 billion in July; active products continued to see outflows while indexed U.S. Equity exchange-traded funds (ETFs) attracted $14.6 billion of net new investment.

Net intake to Bond funds totaled $900 million in July. Top inflow Taxable Bond strategies during the month included Government Short Maturity ($3.4 billion) and Global Bond ($2.3 billion). Corporate High Quality strategies led monthly net redemptions during the month with $2.8 billion of net outflows.

Strategic Insight says fund returns by asset class were led by U.S. Equity in July, registering an asset-weighted average one-month cumulative return of 1.3%. Taxable and Tax-Free Bond fund average returns were also positive at 0.3% and 0.6%, respectively. International Equity funds declined 0.4% during the month. 

Net subscriptions to Money Market funds totaled $44.6 billion in July.

More information about Strategic Insight is at www.sionline.com.