Can You Hear Me Now? 17th Weekly Fund Outflow As Equity Fund Redemptions Accelerate
Courtesy of Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
This is just getting silly: perhaps the next update on ICI mutual fund flows should occur if there is an inflow for once…ever again. In the meantime, ICI reports we have just recorded the 17th consecutive weekly outflow from domestic equity mutual funds, and what’s worse for mutual funds’ depleted liquidity ratios, it is now accelerating, hitting a total of $4.3 billion, a more than 50% increase from last week’s $2.7 billion. YTD outflows have now hit $54 billion, as ever more capital is going into far safer fixed income instruments. As a reminder, here is what Rosenberg said on the issue yesterday: "As for liquidity ratios, equity funds portfolio manages have theirs at an all-time low of 3.4%, down from 3.8% in June. Tack on the fact that there are really not very many shorts to be covered – since the market peaked in April, short interest is 4.3% of the S&P 500 market cap (in August 2008 it was 6%) and there’s not a whole lot of underlying fund-flow support for the stock market here." As for this being a contrarian signal, hopefully all those who see this as a buying opportunity can also find a way to make the now retiring baby boomers about 10 years younger and force them away from fixed income capital reallocation. Oh, and fix the broken market and restore investor confidence that the casino is only modestly rigged.
In the meantime, no matter what the market does (and somehow it has been flat during the entire period of record redemptions: good to know someone is putting capital into stocks), on a short-term basis, nobody wants to touch it with a ten foot pole. Retail is no longer fascinated by speculating and day trading: after all why should they – they get better odds in Vegas… where the decor puts the aging CNBC female anchor crew to shame.
