Bond Fund Flows Get Volatile
Bond mutual fund and bond ETF flows have zigzagged over the past 3 weeks, following a long string of strong gains. ICI's latest "Combined Estimated Long-Term Fund Flows and ETF Net Issuance" says, "Total estimated outflows from long-term mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were $10.18 billion for the week ended August 21, 2019, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Estimated mutual fund outflows were $6.49 billion while estimated net issuance for ETFs was $3.69 billion. Reports of long-term flow estimates and ETF net issuance are available on the ICI website." The release explains, "Bond funds had estimated outflows of $3.95 billion for the week, compared to estimated outflows of $10.04 billion during the previous week. Taxable bond funds saw estimated outflows of $1.88 billion, and municipal bond funds had estimated inflows of $2.07 billion." The week prior to these saw combined bond fund and bond ETF flows down $2.6 billion. Crane Data, which continues to "beta" test a Bond Fund Intelligence Daily product, shows that bond fund and bond ETF assets increased by $8.6 billion over the week ended August 27. (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.)
