US long-term mutual funds kicked off 2012 with inflows of $34 billion in January, reversing December’s outflows of $9.8 billion, data from Morningstar shows.

Morningstar has also found that municipal-bond funds continued their recovery with inflows of $6.6 billion, their greatest monthly inflow since September 2009.

Meanwhile, investors showed little interest in equities despite the market rally, taking $2.8 billion out of US stock funds last month. It was the smallest monthly outflow for the asset class since May 2011, but last January such funds saw an inflow of $15.7 billion.

Morningstar also said that taxable-bond funds saw inflows of $24.6 billion, their best month in 18 months.

Emerging markets bond funds collected record inflows of $2 billion in January, while diversified emerging markets funds saw inflows of $2.7 billion.