Mutual Fund Assets Continue Slide in September
Over the month, assets in:
- stock funds fell by 10.8%,
- hybrid funds fell by 5.4%,
- taxable bond funds increased by 0.7%,
- municipal bond funds fell by 0.9%
- taxable money market funds increased by 2.9%, and
- tax-free money market funds increased by 2%
Equity
Assets to the tune of $29.51 billion fled stock funds last month, compared with an outflow of $4.82 billion in August. Although this outflow is the largest one-month total this year, it represents only 0.87% of August?s assets.
The largest monthly outflow, as a percentage of assets was the $7.48 billion recorded in October 1987, which represented 3.1% of the previous month’s assets.
Stock fund shareholders reduced their new purchases of shares, including purchases through exchanges, to $67.80 billion from $97.91 billion in August. However, redemptions also declined over the month, from $102.73 billion in August to $96.30 billion in September.
Fixed Income
Bond funds had inflows of $7.63 billion in September, compared with inflows of $16.72 billion in August.
Taxable bond funds increased $7.96 billion over the month, compared with cash flow of $13.73 billion in August, while municipal bond funds lost $335 million in September, compared with an inflow of $2.98 the previous month.
Money Market
Some $53.15 billion flowed into money market mutual funds in September, compared with $26.46 billion in August. Much of this was institutional money- the product of corporations using money funds as a cash management tool in an environment of falling interest rates.