Flight-to-quality boosts U.S.-based Treasury, foreign funds: Lipper

[June 09, 2017]  By Sam Forgione and Jennifer Ablan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors in U.S.-based funds poured $1.4 billion into mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that invest in U.S. Treasuries in the week ended June 7, marking the biggest inflows since late January, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday.

Funds that invest mainly in foreign debt securities also attracted $1.4 billion in new cash, marking their biggest inflows since July 2016. The Lipper Commodities Precious Metals Funds, which include gold, attracted $799 million over the weekly period. Conversely, stock funds posted $5 billion in outflows after attracting $9.2 billion in inflows the prior week.

Tom Roseen, head of research services at Thomson Reuters Lipper, said the inflows into safer markets were "not so surprising considering the 'Super Thursday' events." He was referring to Thursday's European Central Bank policy announcement and the U.K. general election as well as the U.S. Senate testimony of James Comey, the former FBI director fired by President Donald Trump in May.

Those events "caused a lot of investors to sit on their hands for the week," Roseen said.

Investors pulled cash from both U.S.-based stock mutual funds and stock ETFs. U.S. mutual funds posted $3.1 billion in outflows and stock ETFs saw $1.9 billion of cash withdrawals.

Investors still had some appetite for corporate bonds and emerging-market securities.

U.S.-based emerging markets equity funds attracted $696 million of inflows over the weekly period, their fourth straight week of inflows, Lipper said. U.S.-based emerging markets debt funds posted inflows of $1.3 billion over the weekly period, their biggest inflows since July 2016, Lipper added.

U.S.-based corporate investment-grade bond funds attracted $3.7 billion of inflows over the weekly period, meanwhile, extending the group's inflow streak since mid-December, according to Lipper data.

"Investors still padded the coffers for investment-grade debt funds, international and global debt funds and flexible portfolio funds, although Treasuries and govvies did get more play than usual," Roseen said.

(Reporting by Sam Forgione and Jennifer Ablan; Editing by David Gregorio and Tom Brown)

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