U.S. retail investors remain skeptical of stocks observes National Bank Financial (NBF) in a new report.
NBF reports that newly released data from the Investment Company Institute (ICI) shows that bonds remain in favour with U.S. retail investors. Bond mutual funds attracted US$31.8 billion in March, it says, pushing the first quarter total to “a whopping” US$94 billion, which the firm says is the best showing ever for a first quarter.
Equity funds, on the other hand, suffered an outflow for the tenth time in eleven months in March. And, NBF says that cumulative outflows from U.S. domestic equity funds total US$163 billion over the past year, which “is the worst performance on record.”
“At this juncture, retail investors are unwilling to let domestic equities account for more than 40% of their asset mix,” NBF concludes. “They are just redeploying profits as U.S. equity markets moves up.”