Wednesday, January 8, 2014

The Muppets Take Wall Street? Equity Funds Get Record $352 Billion Inflow

Not enough to deeply commit the retail investor i.e. more to come. The Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index was at $19.60977 trillion at yesterday's close so, even accounting for the fact that traded equities are priced by the last dollar in, fund flows of 1.8% of capitalization (or 0.0455% of total household net worth of $77.3 trillion) just don't mark the top.
Yet.
From Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis:
In yet another example of the extreme bubble optimism regarding equities, Trim Tabs reports (via email), Fund Flow Records Smashed Across the Board in 2013.
TrimTabs Investment Research reported today that U.S.-listed equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds took in a record $352 billion in 2013, smashing the previous record inflow of $324 billion in 2000. Meanwhile, U.S.-listed bond mutual funds and exchange-traded funds redeemed a record $86 billion, topping the previous record outflow of $62 billion in 1994.

“The Fed finally succeeded last year in its long-running campaign to coax fund investors to speculate,” said David Santschi, Chief Executive Officer of TrimTabs. “The ‘great rotation’ that some market strategists long anticipated is under way.” In a note to clients, TrimTabs explained that U.S. equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds received $156 billion in 2013, the first inflow since 2007 and the biggest inflow since the record inflow of $274 billion in 2000. Global equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds received $195 billion, edging past the previous record inflow of $183 billion in 2006.

“Retail investors are particularly enthusiastic about non-U.S. stocks, which should make contrarians wary,” said Santschi. “Global equity mutual funds took in $137 billion last year, which was more than seven times the inflow of $18 billion into U.S. equity mutual funds. These highly disproportionate inflows occurred even though non-U.S. stocks as a whole badly lagged U.S. stocks.”...MORE
Here's Kermit calling his retail broker. For our younger readers,
the thing he's holding to his head is called a "payphone".
Payphone.