The flow has become a deluge, as investors put $27.6 billion into equity passive funds in October, more than doubling September’s $12.7 billion inflow.
Investors pulled slightly more from active funds than the previous month. In October, $18.8 billion was pulled from U.S. equity funds, compared with $18.5 billion in September, according to Morningstar.
The Chicago-based research firm estimates net flow for mutual funds by computing the change in assets not explained by the performance of the fund and net flow for ETFs by computing the change in shares outstanding.
Highlights from the report include:
- Taxable bond remained the leading category group in October with $39.1 billion in flows overall, divided almost evenly between the passive and active side. Following taxable bond was international equity, which more than doubled to $22.2 billion in October from $9.8 billion in September.
- The three Morningstar Categories with the highest inflows in October are intermediate-term bond, foreign large blend, and large blend. The three Categories with the largest outflows are large value, large growth, and mid-cap value.
- Among top U.S. fund families, J.P. Morgan was the leader in active flows with $4.6 billion, followed by PIMCO with $3.5 billion. Fidelity and Franklin Templeton continued to sustain outflows from their active funds as they did in September; however, T. Rowe Price received inflows of $312.0 million. On the passive front, Vanguard was the top fund family, with inflows of $26.6 billion, followed by BlackRock/iShares with inflows of $20.4 billion.
- The active fund with the highest inflow was JPMorgan International Research Enhanced Equity Fund, with flows of $3.1 billion. After announcing a fee increase in September, PIMCO Income came in second with flows of $3 billion. On the passive front, Gold-rated Vanguard 500 Index Fund attracted the highest flows of $9 billion and iShares Core S&P 500 ETF followed with $3.9 billion in flows.
- Bronze-rated T. Rowe Price New Income suffered a $1.2 billion outflow in October, the largest outflow among active funds. The passive fund with the largest outflow was Vanguard Institutional Index at $4.8 billion. iShares MSCI Spain Capped ETF experienced $571 million in outflows, following Catalonia’s declaration of independence from Spain.
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
