Intermediate-term bond funds suffered withdrawals of $24.4 billion (€18.8 billion) in June, with net outflows from a single product, the Pimco Total Return Fund, amounting to $9.6 billion.
The latest report on mutual fund flows from Morningstar shows that long government, emerging market and inflation-protected bond funds also performed weakly. The data provider calls “June the worst month on record for bond funds in terms of total outflows”.
Across all its funds, Pimco had net outflows of $14.5 billion in the month, more than any other manager. Fidelity was next in line with a net outflow of $5.1 billion.
Vanguard saw its first outflows on a company level in nearly 20 years, including from exchange-traded and money market funds. Meanwhile, MFS Investment Management topped all providers with a net inflow of $1.4 billion.
In a statement to Funds Europe, Pimco says it is “a long-term investor and the Total Return Fund has been one of the top performing intermediate bond funds during its 26-year history, delivering investor value over myriad market cycles”.
Taxable-bond funds were hard hit, with a combined $43.8 billion of withdrawals in June, while municipal-bond funds had a net outflow of $16.4 billion, according to the data.
Both international equity and alternative funds had net inflows in June, according to Morningstar figures.
©2013 funds europe
