Mutual Funds See Inflows in January

Corporate Bond Funds led the way, with $16.1 billion in inflows, followed by tax-free bond funds ($3.8 billion) and equity funds ($3.0 billion). International/global equity funds experienced the largest net outflows of $895 million.

By Morningstar category, investors favored intermediate-term bond funds, which posted an inflow of $7.8 billion for the month, followed by high-yield bond funds and specialty-natural resources funds, which pulled in $3.7 billion and $2.99 billion, respectively.

The best selling funds in January were the Vanguard Total Bond II ($13.5 billion), PIMCO Total Return ($3.2 billion), and State Street’s SPDR Gold Shares ($1.8 billion).

However, sales were not enough to counter market losses as the combined assets of the nation’s mutual funds decreased in January by $191 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute (see “Sales not Enough to Counter Mutual Fund Losses’).