Scalper1 News
By Patrick Keon The S&P 500 Index (+0.41%) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (+0.20%) both recorded gains for the flows week. The overall positive performance by the indices for the week marked a significant turnaround from the performance at the start of the week; both indices retreated over 2.5% during the first two trading days. Then the markets rallied over the second half of the week: the S&P 500 was up 3.0% and the Dow appreciated 2.8%. Again, news and speculation about whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December dominated the market news during the week. There was sufficient economic data and public signals from individual Fed presidents for the market to take the view that the rate rise in December is becoming a foregone conclusion. Economic data released the prior week showed continued strength in the jobs market, with new unemployment claims remaining low and inflation starting to percolate as U.S. consumer prices rose in October. Both of these areas had been previously pointed to by Fed Chair Janet Yellen as key determinants in the Fed’s decision-making process. Four Fed presidents (New York’s William Dudley, St. Louis’s James Bullard, Richmond’s Jeffrey Lacker, and Cleveland’s Loretta Mester) publicly expressed during the week that December is the right time to start lifting rates. The near certainty of a rate increase was taken as a positive by week’s end and was seen as a strong sign the U.S. economy is continuing to improve. This past week’s net outflows for money market funds (-$20.2 billion) pushed their overall outflows for the year so far to $23.2 billion. The week’s activity in the group was varied; funds in Lipper’s Money Market Funds and Institutional Money Market Funds classifications had significant net outflows of $14.6 billion and $13.8 billion, respectively. Meanwhile, Institutional U.S. Government Money Market Funds and Institutional U.S. Treasury Money Market Funds took in $4.5 billion and $3.0 billion of net new money. Equity mutual funds (-$3.3 billion) were responsible for all the net outflows from the equity fund macro-group, while equity ETFs had positive flows of just over $1 billion. Mutual funds saw net outflows from both domestic equity (-$2.6 billion) and nondomestic equity (-$700 million) funds. Among ETFs, the PowerShares QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ: QQQ ) (+$693 million) and the United States Oil ETF (NYSEARCA: USO ) (+$373 million) experienced the two largest net inflows for the week. Similar to the equity funds, mutual funds were responsible for all the net outflows for taxable bond funds (-$820 million), while taxable bond ETFs saw their coffers grow $1.2 billion. Investors ran away from lower-quality mutual funds; Lipper’s High Yield Funds and Loan Participation Funds classifications had $1.0 billion and $234 million of net outflows for the week. The Core Bond Funds category paced the ETFs, with the group taking in over $930 million of net new money. Municipal bond mutual funds had net inflows of $263 million-for their seventh consecutive week of positive flows. Funds in Lipper’s national municipal bond fund classifications (+$251 million) accounted for the lion’s share of these positive flows. Scalper1 News
Scalper1 News