Big Outflows from Bond Funds
Bond mutual funds and ETFs saw their largest outflows since December 2015 in the latest week, according to ICI's "Combined Estimated Long-Term Fund Flows and ETF Net Issuance". The November 7, 2018 release, with data as of Oct. 31, 2018, says, "Total estimated outflows from long-term mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were $16.27 billion for the week ended October 31, 2018, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Estimated mutual fund outflows were $28.70 billion while estimated net issuance for ETFs was $12.43 billion. Reports of long-term flow estimates and ETF net issuance are available on the ICI website.... Bond funds had estimated outflows of $18.52 billion for the week, compared to estimated outflows of $7.04 billion during the previous week. Taxable bond funds saw estimated outflows of $17.33 billion, and municipal bond funds had estimated outflows of $1.19 billion." See also, Reuters' "Investors Pull $18.5 Billion From U.S. Bond Funds in One Week: ICI", which says, "U.S. fund investors fled bonds at the fastest pace since 2013 in the final week of October, worried about rising interest rates and tightening monetary policy, Investment Company Institute (ICI) data showed on Wednesday. More than $18.5 billion of mutual fund and exchange-traded fund assets flowed out the debt market during the week ended Oct. 31, the most since the "Taper Tantrum" panic of June 2013, when markets worried about the U.S. Federal Reserve planning to stop buying bonds." Crane Data, which has begun "beta" testing a new Bond Fund Intelligence Daily product, estimates that bond fund assets have declined an additional $9.3 billion in the week ended November 7. (Let us know if you'd like to see a copy of our new product, which tracks daily assets, yields and NAVs on a subset of the bond fund and ETF universe. Also, watch for more details in the pending November issue of our Bond Fund Intelligence newsletter, which will be released on Thursday, November 15.)
