Stock Funds Pick Up the Pace In May

Cash flow into domestic equity funds was stock funds was $19.76 billion in May, compared with cash flow of $17.37 billion in April.

However, world equity funds had an outflow of $2.47 billion in May, compared with an inflow of $1.85 billion in April. On a net basis, equity funds rose by $28.39 billion in May, lifted by net new cash flow of $17.29 billion. In April $19.21 billion had flowed to equity funds. Overall, equity funds totaled $3.744 trillion at month’s end, an increase of 0.8% from April’s report.

Fund Flows

The combined assets of the nation?s mutual funds increased by 1.2% to $7.028 trillion in May, according to the Investment Company Institute?s official survey of the mutual fund industry.

Money market mutual funds increased by an even more impressive $39.88 billion to $2.071 trillion in May. Money market funds offered primarily to institutions reported an inflow of $46.0 billion during the month.

Taxable bond funds drew an additional $5.0 billion in net cash flows, while the category increased 1.6% overall to $1.824 billion. Municipal bond funds managed to pick up a net $1.112 billion in cash flows, but the category only increased 1.3% to $284.4 billion.

Hybrid funds finished the month at $353.2 billion, up 1.5% from a month earlier. Hybrids, which are comprised of both stock and bond holdings, benefited from $1.435 billion in net inflows during the month.