Lipper: Equity Funds Gain, Bond Funds Lose in April

May 20, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Rising interest rates took their toll on bond mutual funds in April, while equity funds managed to overcome flat-to-declining stock markets to squeeze out a gain for the month.

Mutual funds saw a $44.6 billion outflow in April led by an outflow of $45.3 billion money market funds and a $9.2 billion outflow in bond funds.   Equity mutual funds recorded a $9.9 billion inflow during April, according to data aggregated by Lipper.

Long-term bond funds experienced the largest outflow among fixed-income mutual funds, losing $7.4 billion in April.   Short-term & Intermediated bond funds also hemorrhaged money during the money, recording an outflow of $1.9 billion.

Leading equity fund inflows were Mixed Equity funds, which gathered $6.7 billion in inflows in April. Other inflows were noted in World Equity funds ($2.4 billion), U.S. Diversified funds ($2.2 billion) and S&P 500 Index funds ($0.7 billion).   Sector Equity funds had estimated outflows of $2.2 billion, led by Science & Technology, which was down $1.3 billion for the month, while U.S. Diversified Equity funds had $2.2 billion in estimated inflows, a drop of more than $4 billion from March.

Lipper attributed to drop in money market funds to tax payments.   The firm said these flows were in line with seasonal expectations.

A copy of the full report is available at  http://www.research.lipper.wallst.com/researchseries/fundFlowsOverview.asp .

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