Investors Went All-In On Stocks All Around The World This Week
$6.0 billion of the inflows went into long-only funds - the biggest week for the asset class in 9 months.
"Fed goes AWOL...investors go All-In. Big, frothy inflows to stocks," writes BofA chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett writes in a note to clients. "Since June, $83 billion into equity funds versus $80 billion out of bond funds (Chart 2); investors beginning to worry about a repeat of Q4 1999, when the Fed left the liquidity gates wide open because of 'Y2K' fears with tech bubble outcome."
U.S. equity funds expanded assets under management by $11.5 billion, but $8.6 billion of those inflows were into exchange-traded funds like SPY, QQQ, and MDY.
European equity funds saw their biggest weekly inflow ever, taking in $5.0 billion.
Below is a complete breakdown of this week's fund flows, via Hartnett:
Asset Class Flows
Equities: big $21.4bn inflows; ($6.0bn into LO funds = largest in 9 months)
Bonds: $0.5bn inflows (ends 3 straight weeks of redemptions)
MMF: as in 2011, big MMF outflow followed by big inflow this week post debt- ceiling resolution
Precious metals: $0.7 outflows (6 straight weeks)
Equity Flows
Europe: largest weekly inflows $5.0bn on record (in absolute terms); 17 straight weeks of inflows
US: $11.5bn inflows ($8.6bn via ETF's - SPY, QQQ, MDY)
EM: $2.6bn inflows (largest in 6 weeks)
Japan: $0.4bn inflows (7 straight weeks)
Fixed Income Flows
70 straight weeks of inflows to floating-rate debt ($0.8bn)
7th straight week of inflows to HY bond funds ($3.7bn)
Small inflows to IG bond funds ($0.3bn)
7th straight week of redemptions from govt/tsy funds ($1.4bn)
$2.6bn inflows to EM equities, but $1.6bn outflows from EM debt funds (largest in 8 weeks)
28 straight weeks of outflows from TIPS ($0.2bn)