Investors are bailing out of mutual funds as if it were 2008.
Mutual funds suffered redemptions of $56.2 billion in the week ended Dec. 19. That’s the biggest outflow since the week ended Oct. 15, 2008, according to data released Wednesday by the Investment Company Institute. And the numbers over the last several weeks have only gotten worse as the chart below shows.
Yet even as investors were dumping mutual funds last week, they added $25.2 billion to exchange-traded funds. And a group of optimists — corporate insiders — have stepped up their buying over the past two months.