The Markets
A Mere 0.14% of DC Balances Were Traded in May
When trades were made, there was a continued movement away from equities into fixed income.
Reported by Lee Barney
There were 13 days favoring fixed income, representing 59% of the trades, and nine days favoring equities, representing 41% of the trades. There was only one day when trades were above normal.
Outflows were primarily from target-date (35%), emerging markets (27%) and company stock (27%) funds, and inflows went mainly to stable value (26%), small U.S. equity (20%) and bond (18%) funds.
At the end of May, 68.5% of DC balances were invested in equities, up slightly from 68.4% in April. As for new contributions, 68% went towards equities in May, down slightly from 68.2% in April. Target-date funds were the asset class with the largest percentage of assets at the end of May (27%) followed by large U.S. equity funds (24%) and stable value funds (10%). Asset classes with the most contributions in May were target-date funds (46%), large U.S. equity funds (20%) and international funds (8%).
Domestic market returns were positive last month, with small U.S. equities (represented by the Russell 2000 Index) up over 6% and large U.S. equities (represented by the S&P 500 Index) over 2%. U.S. bonds (represented by the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Index) followed suit, gaining close to 1%. International equities, however, fell more than 2% in last month.