June 15, 2012
--- Long-term mutual funds recorded their smallest monthly intake year to date in May, with $14.1 billion in new assets. ---
Among the broad asset classes,
taxable-bond funds showed the greatest decline, from April inflows of $16.9
billion, to $7.7 billion in May, and U.S stock funds saw their 13th consecutive
month of outflows, according to Morningstar data.
Although actively managed stock
funds—both domestic and international—have suffered outflows of more than
$172.3 billion over the past 12 months, a subset of these, dividend-focused
equity-income funds, have bucked the trend and seen inflows of $21.7 billion
over the same period.
After five straight months of strong
inflows, high-yield bond funds saw net outflows of $1.2 billion in May as
prices fell, but the magnitude of money leaving open-end funds was relatively
small compared with past pullbacks.
Vanguard, led by inflows to its
index funds, and JPMorgan had the greatest provider-level inflows during the
month. However, MFS was a close third, fueled by inflows of $1.3 billion for
MFS Value. American Funds notched its 35th consecutive month of outflows.
Although money market funds reversed
four straight months of outflows, inflows were a negligible $1.4 billion in
May.
The complete report is available here.
Jay Polansky