The money market funds asset group took in almost $164 billion of net new money for the fund-flows week ended Wednesday, April 1. This total, while substantial, is actually almost $100 billion less than last week’s record-setting net inflow (+$259.8 billion). This result indicates that investors are still more interested in sitting out the current volatility than participating, but after three consecutive weeks of record-setting net inflows for the asset group, it was good to see them step back from the precipice a bit.
The taxable bond funds (-$9.2 billion) and municipal bond funds (-$749 million) groups each experienced net outflows for the fifth consecutive week. These net outflows were significantly less than the record-setting numbers from the week before for the groups (-$62 billion for taxable and -$13.7 billion for tax-exempt). In an investing environment that has changed seemingly overnight and is unrecognizable from what we’ve known in the past, net outflows that do not qualify as the highest in history can be viewed as a positive.
Equity funds broke a streak of six straight weekly net outflows (including -$27.1 billion last week) with $3.9 billion of net positive flows.
Pat Keon, CFA, speaks to the highlights in this week's video.
