The wild market rides prompted investors to pull some $13.2 billion out of long-term mutual funds in May, particularly from equity funds, reports Morningstar, though money markets saw large redemptions, too.
The redemption of nearly $15 billion from domestic-equity funds was the largest monthly outflow since March 2009, the research firm reports.
Plus, European economic woes ended 13 consecutive months of steady inflows for international-stock funds. The asset class saw outflows of nearly $6 billion in May.
Still, U.S. ETFs had inflows of $4.8 billion in the same month, bringing year-to-date net inflows to $24.7 billion. The ETF industry had roughly $793 billion in assets as of the end of May, according to Morningstar.
Overall, net mutual fund flows including money markets declined $26.6 billion in May.
For the first five months of 2010, long-term mutual fund flows stand at $151.4 billion. When money markets are included, the positive flows go the other way, for combined outflows of $464.3 billion.
In 2009, long-term fund flows were positive to the tune of $377.5 billion vs. outflows of $378.4 billion when money markets are added to the mix.