Junk funds lose $548 million in latest week, second consecutive loss

New York, July 26 – High-yield mutual funds and exchange-traded funds – considered a reliable barometer of overall liquidity trends in the junk market – were in negative territory for a second week following the departure of $548 million of cash during the week ended July 25, according to fund-flow statistics generated by AMG Data Services Inc.

The latest outflow was more than double the $260 million that was withdrawn the previous week and came after a sizable $1.852 billion gain the previous week, according to a Prospect News analysis of the reports by the Arcata, Calif.-based unit of Thomson Reuters Corp’s Lipper analytics division.

Before that there was a $1.729 billion outflow during the week ended July 4, the third straight period of losses after $1.135 billion in the week to June 27 and $232 million before that.

The three weeks in the red came after a choppy period which saw the funds gain $324 million before the string of outflows began.

Preceding that, there was a big $2.420 billion outflow following a minimal $18 million withdrawal of cash.

In the week to May 23, the funds had added $261 million of cash but there were outflows of $0.542 billion and $0.755 billion in the preceding weeks and those followed a gain of $0.526 billion in the week ending May 2 and suffering a large $2.489 billion loss the week before that and an even larger $2.971 billion inflow in the April 18 week.

The cumulative outflow for the year now totals $19.26 billion, having widened from $18.71 billion the previous week but still above the year’s low of $20.30 billion.

For the past 10 weeks, the funds have seen two inflows and eight outflows in the past 10 weeks.

There have been nine inflows and 21 outflows in the 30 weeks to date in 2018, according to the Prospect News analysis.

IG corporates see inflow

Among other asset classes, investment-grade corporate funds saw a solid $1.986 billion addition of investor cash, coming after a similarly sized inflow of $2.021 billion in the week to July 25.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.