Mutual Fund and ETF Asset Flows Declined in May

The report on mutual fund flows also saw that although inflows have slowed, international-stock funds collected assets of about $1.5 billion during the month. Diversified emerging-markets equity funds accounted for the majority of these inflows. Inflows also increased for taxable-bond funds for the fifth consecutive month as investors added $20.8 billion to the asset class in May.  

Although three U.S. stock ETFs placed in May’s top-five ETFs by inflows, the U.S. stock asset class saw outflows of $2.7 billion during the month; outflows from international-stock ETFs totaled $1.1 billion. Commodities ETFs realized the largest outflow of any ETF asset class in May, as investors withdrew $3.7 billion. Taxable-bond ETFs made a strong contribution to overall ETF flows: the asset class’s inflows of $2.1 billion were second only to alternative ETFs, which also saw inflows of about $2.1 billion.