Mutual Funds See Positive Inflows in July

A month after suffering a $2.7-billion outflow, mutual funds ducked back into solid positive territory in July with $26.7 billion in inflows, according to data from the Financial Research Corporation (FRC).

A FRC news release said International/Global funds led the charge in July with net inflows of $19.2 billion, followed by Corporate funds with a $3.5 billion net advance. Domestic equity funds had $3.13 billion in July inflows.

June’s asset drop followed a $5.3-billion advance in May, according to the data.

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By Morningstar category, Intermediate-Term Bond Funds led the way in July with $5.37 billion in inflows, followed by Foreign Large Blend with $3.83 billion in inflows, World Stock with $2.81 billion, Large Blend with $2.46 billion, and Foreign Large Value with $2.1 billion.

American Funds topped all complexes with $5.6 billion of July net inflows, followed by State Street Global Advisors at $5 billion and the Vanguard Group at $4 billion.

Fidelity’s Nasdaq 100 Index collected $4.9 billion to lead the July fund sales charts, followed by State Street Global Advisers’ SPDR Trust at $2.45 billion, and American Capital Income Builder at $1.52 billion.

KS Firm Offers Web-based Advice Product

An Overland Park, Kansas company is offering an online advice product for retirement plans.

The advice is tailored to the investor’s personal situation and investing style, said a news release from Smart401k.

“Employers now have a clear way to improve and simplify an area of confusion for many employees while at the same time strengthening a critical piece of their employee benefit plan,” said Scott Revare, CEO of Smart401k, in the news release.

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The news release said the company’s advisers use proprietary tools to analyze a client’s risk tolerance and investment time frame to assist them in making their recommendations. These recommendations include both investment selection and asset allocation. After the initial recommendation, Smart401k provides each client with quarterly asset allocation adjustments and ongoing plan monitoring, the company said.

According to the company, Smart401k provides advice to individuals who have more than $1 billion in retirement plan assets and monitors the plans of more than 4,000 companies in 47 states.

More information is at http://www.smart401k.com.

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