A weekly report by EPFR global, the guys that produce the BOFA reports I’ve been highlighting on occasion, shows that equity funds are still seeing continued outflows overall while bond funds are benefiting.
- Bond funds see $5.2bnb inflows
- Equity funds -$427m
- Money market funds +$23bn
Japan and Europe still saw inflows in equities with Japan posting a 28 week streak of gains. Europe also saw the biggest inflows into bond funds in 8 months. US equity funds saw the biggest outflow since early December. EM equity funds hit an 11 week streak for outflows.
Bond funds improved after bottoming in December and hit a hatrick for weekly gains. US bf’s saw their biggest increase since mid-November and EU saw the most since April. EM local currency bf’s saw inflows for the first time in 14 weeks. Overall it was the biggest global inflow into bf’s since July.
US saw the chasm widen as money went into long term government and corporate bonds while municipal funds slumped to a 15 week low.
The reports I’ve been keeping an eye on have provided some good insights into sentiment and what we are seeing in the market. Japan and Europe have/are still seeing a lot of money into them but the overall picture is that there has been some signs that equity inflows are starting to abate.
I’ll be keeping a close eye on these reports as it will give us further clues as to whether we are going to see a top in place in stocks. If flows out start picking up it could well be the time to start shorting (if you’re not trying to top pick already
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