Bond Fund Outflows Continue
Bond mutual funds and ETFs continued to see big outflows in the latest week, though not as large as the prior week, according to ICI's "Combined Estimated Long-Term Fund Flows and ETF Net Issuance". The January 2, 2019 release, with data as of Dec. 26, 2018, says, "Total estimated outflows from long-term mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were $37.84 billion for the week ended December 26, 2018, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Estimated mutual fund outflows were $46.20 billion while estimated net issuance for ETFs was $8.36 billion. Reports of long-term flow estimates and ETF net issuance are available on the ICI website." The release adds, "Bond funds had estimated outflows of $9.23 billion for the week, compared to estimated outflows of $12.22 billion during the previous week. Taxable bond funds saw estimated outflows of $10.14 billion, and municipal bond funds had estimated inflows of $913 million." Crane Data, which has begun "beta" testing a new Bond Fund Intelligence Daily product, estimates that bond fund outflows almost ceased in the week ended January 2, 2019, as assets declined a mere $3.9 billion. (Let us know if you'd like to see a copy of our new product, which tracks daily assets, yields and NAVs on a subset of the bond fund and ETF universe.)
