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The inflows were the biggest in over two years,
or since early January 2013, and marked the 16th straight week
of inflows into the funds according to the data from ICI, a U.S.
mutual fund trade organization.
In contrast, funds that specialize in U.S. shares bled $3.4
billion, marking their eighth straight week of outflows.
Overall, stock funds attracted $3.1 billion to reverse the prior
week's outflows of $2.7 billion and mark the biggest inflows in
six weeks.
"It's a little bit of performance chasing but I think the
biggest factor is people have been under-invested
internationally," said Scott Wren, senior global equity
strategist at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute in St. Louis.
The U.S. benchmark S&P 500 eked out a 0.1 percent gain over the
weekly period to outperform the 1.3 percent decline in Europe's
broad FTSEurofirst 300 index. The European index rallied nearly
16 percent in the first quarter, however, while the S&P 500 rose
just 0.4 percent.
Bond funds attracted $3.8 billion to mark their biggest inflows
in seven weeks and reverse the prior week's small $316 million
in outflows. Municipal bond funds attracted $683 million of the
total sum after posting their biggest outflows since Dec. 2013
in the prior week.
The inflows into bond funds came after the U.S. tax filing
deadline on April 15 had passed. The deadline had prompted
investors to pull cash out of bond funds in the prior reporting
period, according to analysts.
Hybrid funds, which can invest in stocks and fixed income
securities, attracted $143 million to mark their 15th straight
week of inflows, though the inflows were the smallest of those
15 weeks.
(Reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Diane
Craft)
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