Dwight:
I had some luck searching on the Wall Street Journal site. There seems to be a firm in Boston called Financial Research Corp. that tracks mutual funds. They say that almost 9% of all stock-fund assets are in index funds.
Even more to the point, in terms of this year's market action...
<The popularity of index funds continued in September, despite the drop in the S&P 500 and other equity benchmarks.
Two index funds run by the Vanguard Group were the top-selling funds of the month. The Vanguard Index 500, which mimics the S&P 500, pulled in $789 million, followed by Vanguard Total Stock Index, a broad fund that tracks the nation's 5000 largest stocks. That fund had inflows of $765 million in September.
In sum, index funds took in $3.2 billion during the month, $500 million more than the industry's $2.7 billion in overall net flows, FRC said. For the year, net sales of index funds total $48.3 billion, which represents 40% of the industry sales, FRC said.>
"Mutual Fund Sales Fell in September Amid Market Slump" by Joe Niedzielski, Dow Jones Newswires, October 28, 1999
interactive.wsj.com (subscription required)
40% of new mutual fund money going into index funds so far this year. 40% of new money that is buying a fixed list of stocks, with no 'market valuation' whatsoever.
Christine |
