Mutual Fund Assets Continue Slide in September

October 30, 2001(PLANSPONSOR.com) - The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds fell by 4.8% to $6.417 trillion in September, according to the Investment Company Institute (ICI)'s survey of the mutual fund industry.

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.

Last month’s report

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