Mutual Fund Net Inflows for September Top $21 Billion

November 2, 2004 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Net inflows into the mutual fund industry in September topped $21 billion, according to estimates by the Financial Research Corporation (FRC).

Domestic equity funds led the way in September, bringing in $11.4 billion of the $21.5 billion inflow total for stock and bond funds. International/Global funds brought in $7.5 billion on the month. The overall totals dwarf the $13.7 billion inflows seen in August (See Exchange-Traded Fund Tops August Mutual Fund Sales ).

Intermediate-term bond funds weighed in with a $2.23 billion gain, while short bonds ended the month with a $678 million advance.

Although the Vanguard Group came in as the largest fund group, American Funds topped all others in growth with a monthly inflow of $6.1 billion. This is the 18 th month in a row that American Funds have led the way in inflows. Vanguard had the second largest fund inflow at $4.5 billion.

The best selling fund for the month was American Funds Growth Fund America, which brought in an estimated $1.3 billion. Falling from the premier spot was State Street’s SPDRs, an exchange-traded fund that is indexed off of the S&P 500. SPDR brought in $1.07 billion in September.

Net inflows, measured by Morningstar category, indicated that Moderate Allocation funds were the most popular in September, bringing in $4.13 billion. Large Value funds had the second largest inflows at $2.96 billion.

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