By Trevor Hunnicutt
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. mutual fund investors favored bonds over stocks for the eighth consecutive week, Investment Company Institute (ICI) data showed on Wednesday, as funds weathered policies that have driven some interest rates negative.
Investors socked away $4.3 billion in bond funds in the latest week, while pulling $4 billion from stock funds, the data showed.
The move into bond funds has accrued largely to the benefit of funds holding high-credit corporate debt, which have taken in $16.2 billion since the week that ended March 2. The strong result came ahead of a U.S. Federal Reserve decision on interest rates expected later Wednesday.
"Investors may see opportunity in investment-grade bonds because of both their value and yield," said Mike Loewengart, vice president of investment strategy at E*TRADE Financial Corp.
"Value in that dovish Fed language fosters strong bond performance, and yield in that, while their spreads have narrowed recently, they are still wide enough for investors to believe they'll deliver favorable returns," he added.
Despite relatively placid stock markets, corporate bonds have been rallying in part because of strong demand by foreign investors fleeing negative interest rate markets outside the United States, especially in Japan, Hans Mikkelsen, head of high-grade credit strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (NYSE:BAC), said in a note to clients Wednesday.
A grouping of "core bond" funds followed by Lipper that roughly tracks the investment-grade segment returned 1.4 percent from Feb. 25 to April 20.
Investment-grade funds took in $2.6 billion in the latest week, compared with $29 million for lower-credit, high-yield bond funds, according to ICI data for the week that ended April 20. Global bond funds lost $359 million to withdrawals.
Meanwhile, U.S. municipal bond funds attracted $1 billion and taxable government bond funds added $602 million, ICI said, extending a long streak of popularity for the relatively safe funds.
Domestic stock funds bled $3.3 billion of cash during the week, while funds focused on international stocks reported $785 million in withdrawals, according to ICI, a fund trade group.
The following table shows estimated ICI flows for the past five weeks (all figures in millions of dollars):
4/20 4/13 4/6 3/30 3/23/2016
Total -4,030 -4,631 -5,841 -4,893 -2,158
equity
-Domestic -3,245 -4,325 -5,286 -3,736 -2,038
-World -785 -306 -555 -1,157 -120
Hybrid 196 -142 373 -2 1,774
Total bond 4,250 2,794 6,667 1,192 4,671
-Taxable 3,248 1,884 5,208 -207 3,087
-Municipal 1,003 910 1,459 1,399 1,584
Total 416 -1,979 1,199 -3,704 4,286