U.S.-based stock funds attract $5.7 billion in latest week: Lipper

By Trevor Hunnicutt

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S.-based stock funds posted their fourth straight week of net new money as investors pumped $4.4 billion into banks, technology and real estate during the week that ended Nov. 4, Lipper data showed on Thursday.

The gains were the biggest in months for mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in each of those sectors, and more than offset weaker appetites for energy, healthcare and utility stocks.

The inflows were led by funds focused on U.S.-listed companies, including the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund which holds stocks of Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bank of America Corp and other banks. It took in $1.2 billion during the week, Lipper said. The fund's share price has risen 6.2 percent over the last month.

By contrast, the actively traded broad-market SPDR S&P 500 ETF had $1.2 billion in outflows.

Banks would earn more interest-based revenue if the U.S. central bank tightens credit.

"The Federal Reserve continued to jawbone the market with additional hawkish comments about the potential for an interest rate hike in December," said Pat Keon, a research analyst at Lipper, in a note.

Overall, domestic-focused stock funds took in $4.3 billion during the week, while non-domestic stock funds raked in $1.4 billion.

"For the lion's share of the year, money was coming out of domestic equity funds," Keon said in an interview. "This could be a reversal of that trend."

High-yield bond funds, which often move in tandem with stocks, nabbed $2 billion of new money during the week, bringing the five-week total to $9.6 billion. That is the longest period of gains for junk debt funds since a six-week stretch from late January to early March, in which the inflow totaled $11.4 billion.

U.S.-based money-market funds posted $13.8 billion in outflows during the week, marking their largest outflows since April.

Yet emerging-market debt funds, many brutalized by sliding currencies, posted their second straight week of withdrawals, of $218 million.

Taxable bond funds saw $100 million in outflows over the same period. ETF investors took $1.6 billion out of those funds, while mutual fund investors added $1.5 billion in new money, according to Lipper.

Investors took more than $2 billion in cash out of investment-grade corporate debt and Treasury funds. And precious-metals commodities funds, which are often used to guard against inflation, had $583 million in outflows during the week.

The weekly Lipper fund flow data is compiled from reports issued by U.S.-domiciled mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Jennifer Ablan and Richard Chang)

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