Investors pump $10 bln into U.S. stock funds in weekly period -Lipper

(Adds data on mutual funds and ETFs) By Trevor Hunnicutt NEW YORK, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Investors pumped $10 billion into U.S.-based stock funds in the week that ended Dec. 30, Lipper data showed on Thursday, demonstrating a willingness to take on risk at the end of a year that has delivered slim gains to financial markets.

Funds tracking foreign stocks took in money from both mutual fund and exchange-traded fund investors during the week - $9.3 billion in all, Lipper said - one week after such funds suffered a historic outflow.

The new money should come as a relief to stockpickers and index-funds tracking the equity markets, whose funds had previously posted four consecutive weeks of outflows that totalled $30 billion as investors digested risks to the global economy and an interest-rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The $10 billion pulled out of "non-domestic" stock funds during the week ended Dec. 23 was the largest ever recorded by Lipper, whose data dates to 1992. The week before that saw an outflow from investment-grade bond funds of $5.1 billion that was also the largest since such record-keeping began.

U.S. taxable bond funds posted $1.8 billion in outflows over the past week, Lipper data showed, the sixth straight week of outflows. Investment-grade debt funds continued to post outflows: this week the withdrawals totalled $1.7 billion.

Yet even in bonds, there were green shoots of optimism. Exchange-traded fund investors added net money to the funds even as mutual-fund owners pulled out.

High-yield bond funds ended what had been a three-week streak of multibillion-dollar outflows, taking in $114 million in new money, as fears abated that tanking energy and commodity prices would sink debt-laden corporate issuers and fund managers who had feasted on such debt.

Emerging-market stock funds added $168 million in new money from investors, their first net inflows since October, according to Lipper.

Money-market funds took in nearly $17 billion in new money during the week, according to the fund data service.

The Lipper fund flow data is compiled from reports issued by U.S.-domiciled mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

The following is a broad breakdown of the flows for the week, including exchange-traded funds (in $ billions): Sector Flow Chg % Assets Assets Count ($Bil) ($Bil) All Equity 10.050 0.20 5,141.025 11,901 Funds Domestic 0.792 0.02 3,626.019 8,476 Equities Non-Domestic 9.258 0.61 1,515.006 3,425 Equities All Taxable -1.796 -0.08 2,161.482 6,104 Bond Funds All Money 16.962 0.74 2,309.528 1,141 Market Funds All Municipal 1.299 0.36 358.919 1,50 Bond Funds (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Chris Reese and Tom Brown)

Advertisement