Investing November 30, 2001

Mutual Fund Assets Grow in October

November 30, 2001 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - US mutual fund assets went up by 3.1% to reach $6.616 trillion in October, according to figures from the Investment Company Institute (ICI).
Reported by

Over the month, equity funds had inflows of $750 million, compared with an outflow of $29.35 billion in September:

  • domestic funds had an inflow of $5 billion
  • international equity funds had an outflow of $4.25 billion

Purchases of new shares of stock funds increased by 58% from the previous month, while redemptions were up by only 11.5%.

Bond funds had an inflow of $13.51 billion in October, compared with an inflow of $7.66 billion in September.

  • purchases of new shares in taxable fixed income funds increased by 23.4% over the month, while redemptions increased by 2.05%
  • new sales of shares in municipal bond fund increased by 36%, while redemptions shrank by 0.1%.

Assets in hybrid funds were up by 1.9% over the month, reaching $330.2 billion. October saw an increase of 41% in new sales, while redemptions grew by only 7.5%.

Money market funds had inflows of $73.95 billion in October, compared with cash flow of $53.89 billion in September. Of the October cash flow, $71.7 billion was placed in funds that are offered primarily to institutions.

Through October, cash flow into institutional money funds accounted for $292.01 billion of the total money fund cash flow of $340.84 billion.

Institutional investors use these funds as a cash management tool and have been taking advantage of falling rates in alternative investments, according to ICI.

The data comes from numbers reported by 4,684 stock funds, 490 hybrid funds, 1,311 fixed income funds and 1,011 money market funds.

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