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Retail flows: The wisdom of “dumb money”
Retail flows: The wisdom of “dumb money”

In this blog, we utilize some of EPFR’s oldest strategies to test the predictive powers of the retail flows captured in the universe of 150,000 mutual fund and ETF share classes encompassing some $47 trillion in AUM that EPFR tracks on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

Mixed signals for emerging markets
Mixed signals for emerging markets

Despite China’s first steps away from the zero-Covid policies that have sapped its economy and some optimistic forecasts for 2023, investors tapped EPFR-tracked Emerging Markets Equity Funds for $2.4 billion – a 13-week high outflow – in early December 2022.

Re-pricing for imperfection as US rate hike looms
Re-pricing for imperfection as US rate hike looms

Mixed earnings reports from the closely watched American technology sector, the European Central Bank (ECB) starting to talk the anti-inflation talk and oil prices hitting levels last seen in 2004 gave investors additional pause for thought going into February. Those investors, already staring down the barrel of multiple US interest rate hikes this year, stepped up their redemptions from Bond Funds and looked for alternatives to US equity without completely abandoning that asset class.

Tiptoeing into the Christmas holidays
Tiptoeing into the Christmas holidays

Flows to EPFR-tracked fund groups during the first week of December tilted towards the positive – at least for the US. Investors steered money into US Equity Funds for the 11th straight week, US Bond and Global Equity Funds rebounded from their first outflows in over seven and 17 months, respectively, and US Money Market Funds took in fresh money for the seventh time in the past eight weeks.

Investors parse the meaning of transitory going into December
Investors parse the meaning of transitory going into December

Hopes that the impact of Covid’s Omicron variant will prove transitory, concern that it will not, and fears that inflation is here to stay whip-sawed global markets during the final days of November. Concerns about the latter issue were crystalized by recently reappointed US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s admission that price pressures could spur the Fed to accelerate the tapering of its asset purchases.