For the week ending February 5 investors added a record $10.7 billion to taxable bond mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) according to Lipper. On the flip-side investors withdrew $18.8 billion from stock mutual funds and ETFs. The stock market’s shaky start caught a lot of investors flat footed. The WSJ reports:
Investors also continued to yank cash out of emerging-market stocks for the fourth week in a row. Emerging-market stock funds shed $2.7 billion in the most-recent week, the biggest outflow since February 2011, compared with $2.6 billion a week earlier.
Virtually all of the shift came from money sloshing out of U.S. stock ETFs and into bond ETFs, funds that can often see big weekly swings in assets. Just $386 million flowed out of traditional U.S. stock mutual funds in the most recent week. Traditional bond mutual funds attracted $1.2 billion.
