Stock funds leak $6 billion
Money fund assets fall by $9 billion
By Craig Tolliver, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 7:07 PM ET June 21, 2001
SANTA ROSA, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- An eerie feeling of calm has descended upon mutual fund investors as stock funds repeat a second straight week of outflows, Mutual Funds Trim Tabs said Thursday.
What had started out as a robust month has seen the June pace fall to zero, with outflows over the last two weeks canceling out earlier inflows.
What's really taken the Santa Rosa, Calif., fund analysts off guard is that over the past three days flows have been flat, with just the tiniest of inflows to show that investors are still breathing.
"We've never seen that before. People just got so bored with the stock market. It's not like they're' rushing to the exits, they've just forgotten about it," director of research Carl Wittnebert said in an interview. "It's a little eerie."
Over the five-day period ending Wednesday, Trim Tabs estimates that investors siphoned off $6 billion from stock funds, adding to outflows of $4.9 billion the week before.
Mutual funds investing primarily in U.S. stocks suffered outflows of $3.9 billion in the latest week, compared to $2.5 billion shed in the previous week.
International funds leaked $2.1 billion during the week, nearly duplicating the $2.4 billion that washed out the week before.
Bond funds had outflows of $100 million, compared with inflows of $200 million the prior week while hybrid funds had inflows of $200 million, vs. zero flow the prior week.
Mutual Funds Trim Tabs tracks the daily flow of a small sampling of mutual fund companies, representing roughly 15 percent of all equity fund assets, to arrive at its weekly estimates.
Money funds
Assets of the nation's money-market funds shed more than $9 billion in the latest week, the Investment Company Institute said Thursday.
Retail investors pulled out $2.5 billion over the five-day period ending Wednesday. Taxable money market funds in the retail category decreased by nearly $1.5 billion in assets while tax-exempt funds decreased by just over $1 billion in assets, according to the Washington-based trade group.
Institutional money-market funds leaked nearly $6.5 billion over the week. Among institutional funds, assets of taxable money funds decreased by $6.8 billion while tax-exempt fund assets rose by $349 million.
Total money market assets stood at nearly $2.105 trillion for the week, according to ICI.
Craig Tolliver is the mutual funds editor for CBS.MarketWatch.com in Los Angeles.
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