(Reuters) - U.S. fund investors intensified their onslaught on the stock market in the latest week, pulling out the most cash since June as investors fretted about interest rate hikes, Investment Company Institute (ICI) data showed on Wednesday.
More than $12.8 billion slipped out of U.S.-based equity mutual and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) during the seven days through Oct. 17, the most recent data available from the trade group showed.
That is the most cash to be withdrawn from those products since late June and came as U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers showed general agreement that further gradual rate hikes would be consistent with the economic expansion, labor market strength and firm inflation that most forecast.
Bond funds recorded withdrawals of $5.6 billion, a second straight week of negative sales for a category that has been enormously popular in recent years but whose returns have faltered as rates rose this year.