Investors placed USD18.2 billion into US equity passive funds, compared with USD10.5 billion of outflows from the previous month, according to Morningstar’s latest estimated mutual fund and ETF asset flows.
On the active front, investors pulled USD11.4 billion, compared with USD11.0 billion in March.
Morningstar 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.
According to Morningstar’s data, following two consecutive months of outflows, US equity funds rebounded with estimated total inflows of USD6.8 billion. Overall, trailing 12-month US equity flows remain negative – to the tune of USD42.6 billion, or a 0.6 per cent decline.
Taxable-bond and international-equity funds remained the leading asset classes in April, with flows of USD25.3 billion and USD11.1 billion, respectively.
The Morningstar Categories with the highest inflows in April were large-blend, foreign large-blend, and ultrashort-bond funds, with respective inflows of USD10.8 billion, USD5.7 billion, and USD5.6 billion. On the bottom-flowing list in April, large value saw the most outflows of USD3.4 billion followed by muni national short, with outflows of USD1.7 billion.
Among top US fund families, Vanguard was near the top with USD12.3 billion in inflows. In April however, BlackRock’s iShares eclipsed that figure with USD17.0 billion in inflows. Vanguard’s year-to-date growth continues to slow year over year. Through the first four months of 2018, Vanguard took in USD71.0 billion, in comparison to USD141.5 billion during the same period of 2017.
Among all US open-end mutual funds and ETFs, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, which has a Morningstar Analyst Rating of Gold, had the highest inflows of USD4.4 billion in April. Bronze-rated iShares Short Treasury Bond ETF and Gold-rated Vanguard Total International Stock Index followed with inflows of USD2.5 billion and USD2.2 billion, respectively. On the bottom-flowing list in April, Silver-rated Fidelity Large Cap Stock Fund had the highest outflows of USD1.3 billion.
