Global equity funds draw big inflows as investors eye central bank signals

Reuters

Published Mar 15, 2024 09:13AM ET

(Reuters) - Global equity funds saw notable inflows in the week to March 13 as investors focused on strong global stock performances, overlooking inflation concerns ahead of the Federal Reserve meeting next week that could provide clues on the timing of the central bank's interest-rate cuts.

According to data from LSEG, global equity funds saw a net $22.63 billion worth of inflows during the week, the largest amount in a week since the first week of February 2022.

Wall Street was set to end marginally higher this week in spite of hotter-than-expected consumer prices and producer prices data pointing to sticky inflation.

"Equities continue to disregard moves in rates, as despite paring back of Fed rate cut pricing in recent months, the S&P500 is up 25% since its October trough," said Chris Whelan, senior strategist at TD Securities.

"Furthermore, this comes alongside a broad-based cross-asset bull-run, with gold and bitcoin garnering much attention as they recently reached new highs."

Regionally, European equity funds led with $15.07 billion in inflows, the most since Feb. 2, 2022. U.S. and Asian equity funds also saw substantial inflows of $4.93 billion and $2.11 billion, respectively.

Sector-wise, technology funds continued their growth trend, receiving $1.01 billion, marking the ninth consecutive week of inflows. Industrial and metals & mining sectors garnered $301 million and $222 million in inflows, respectively, while consumer discretionary sectors faced net outflows of $962 million.

Meanwhile, global money market funds remained in high demand for the third week in a row, with $35.51 billion in net purchases.

Global bond funds also continued their positive streak, attracting $7.27 billion in the 12th consecutive week of inflows. Within this segment, medium-term U.S. dollar bonds, global corporate, and government bond funds drew $2 billion, $1.78 billion and $475 million respectively.