Investors pumped $50.7 billion into money-market funds in the third quarter, according to the estimates provided by Lipper. However, they also showed a diverse appetite for both fixed-income and equity products.
Third-quarter estimated fund flows into traditional mutual funds (excluding money markets) were $25.5 billion, with investors focusing on taxable fixed-income products ($21.1 billion) and municipal debt ($5.8 billion). ETF inflows hit $31.8 billion and moved mainly into equity products to the tune of $28.1 billion.
In Lipper's analysis of the Q3 winners and losers, released in early October, the group says institutional U.S. Treasury money-market funds drew nearly $29 billion of inflows, while international U.S. government money-markets brought in about $19 billion. Core-bond funds had inflows of $10.5 billion. Other leading categories with inflows were international multi-cap core ($8.6 billion) and multi-cap core ($7 billion).
Losing categories for the past three months included high yield (–$17.4 billion), loan participation (–$8.4 billion), large-cap growth (–$7 billion), multi-cap growth (–$5 billion) and small-cap growth (–$4.5 billion).
As for performance, equity funds fell 2.92% in the third quarter—their first quarterly loss over the past nine three-month periods.
