Investing March 24, 2001

Lipper Miscalculates February Outflows

March 23, 2001 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Investors fled equity funds in February - but by $9 billion less than fund researcher Lipper initially reported.
Reported by

Lipper announced late Thursday that it had miscalculated the fund flows for the month, and that investors had withdrawn $2.4 billion, not the record $11.4 billion that had been reported on Wednesday.

It was still the first net withdrawal from stock funds since August 1998, but paled in comparison to the (still) record $8 billion pulled in the wake of the 1987 market crash.

However, Lipper’s revised February estimates indicate a net inflow to domestic equity funds of $1.3 billion and an outflow of $3.7 billion from world funds.

“It was a hand processing error pertaining to one specific fund,” senior analyst Don Cassidy told CBS.MarketWatch.com. Cassidy did not reveal the affected fund, but said that it was an equity income fund and that mistake was on the part of Lipper and not the fund family, according to CBS MarketWatch.

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