Morningstar reported today estimated U.S. mutual fund asset flows for June 2013. Investors withdrew $43.8 billion from taxable-bond funds and $16.4 billion from municipal-bond funds, making June the worst month on record for bond funds in terms of total outflows. Long-term funds overall shed $47.3 billion, the largest monthly outflow since $105.6 billion in October 2008
Additional highlights from Morningstar’s report on mutual fund flows:
- Intermediate-term bond funds lost $24.4 billion in June, dragged down by outflows of $9.6 billion from PIMCO Total Return. DoubleLine Total Return saw redemptions of $1.2 billion, its first monthly outflow. Other weak-performing bond categories included long government, emerging-markets bond, and inflation-protected bond.
- Not all fixed-income categories suffered in June and the year-to-date period. Bank-loan funds have collected more assets than any other category in 2013, and nontraditional bond has come in third.
- International-equity and alternative funds had net inflows in June. Among international-equity funds, Oakmark International, which has a Morningstar Analyst Rating™ of Gold, continued its string of strong inflows, collecting $753 million. The fund has doubled in size in the last year, absorbing nearly $5.0 billion and achieving a 35 percent return year to date.
- At the firm level, PIMCO led outflows, with redemptions of $14.5 billion, followed by Fidelity with $5.1 billion. Vanguard saw its first firm-level outflows (including exchanged-traded and money market funds) in nearly 20 years. MFS topped all providers with inflows of $1.4 billion.
Morningstar estimates net flows by computing the change in assets not explained by the performance of the fund. Click here for a full explanation of Morningstar’s methodology.
To view the complete report, please visit http://www.global.morningstar.com/juneflows13.