Monthly Fund Flows Mixed in November

The November 2015 Monthly Highlights report from Strategic Insight (SI), an Asset International company providing proprietary mutual fund flow research and benchmarking data to the asset management industry, shows U.S. equity funds experienced outflows of $7 billion during the month. 

The U.S. equity outflows were the result of $25 billion of net redemptions from active products and inflows of $18 billion to index funds. 

According to SI, international equity products netted $4.8 billion during the month, lifting year-to-date net inflows to $214 billion, while the taxable bond fund category’s net redemptions totaled $5.5 billion in November. Corporate high quality debt, with $1.2 billion in positive flows, was strongly preferred to corporate high yield, which saw $3.2 billion of outflows, “as investors prepared for a widely anticipated rate hike in December.” Year-to-date taxable bond funds have attracted $53 billion of net new investment, SI explains, while tax-free bond funds netted $2.9 billion during the month.

Looking to asset class returns, SI finds one-month equity fund returns were mixed in November, with U.S. equity funds returning a weighted average 0.4% and international equity averaging -1%. Bond fund returns were also split, with taxable products averaging -0.4% and tax-free products benefiting modestly at 0.4%. Net deposits to money market funds totaled $10.7 billion in November.

Information about how to obtain SI research is available here.