Stock, Commodity Funds Lose Favor; Bond Funds Boom - Morningstar

Harriet Davies

16 June 2011

Long-term mutual fund inflows declined for the fourth consecutive month in May, but stayed positive, while exchange traded funds were hit with some $1.3 billion of outflows, according to the latest Morningstar estimates for the US.

May saw inflows of $22.6 billion to long-term mutual funds. Within this, US stock funds experienced outflows of $4.5 billion, while international stock funds offset this performance with inflows of $1.5 billion.

The bulk of assets went to taxable-bond funds, which were bolstered by $20.8 billion of new money. There was, however, “a slightly diminished taste for credit risk,” Morningstar said. Flows into municipal-bond funds were flat, stabilizing after six months of outflows.

With the falling commodity markets, commodity funds lost more than 5 per cent on average, and saw a net $500 million withdrawn.

Of the $3.1 billion outflows from ETFs, US stock ETFs accounted for $2.7 billion. International stock ETFs saw a reverse in their fortunes; after gathering $7.1 billion of assets in April, flows turned negative in May as investors withdrew a net $1.1 billion.

Commodity ETFs were also hit by outflows of $3.7 billion.

Meanwhile, taxable-bond and alternative ETFs took up the slack, both with inflows of $2.1 billion.