After six consecutive weeks of outflows, municipal bond mutual funds finally saw inflows.
The week ending Sept. 7 saw $565 million in inflows from muni bond funds that report their flows weekly, according to Lipper FMI.
The deposits bucked a recent trend. In the week ended Aug. 31, there were net outflows of $282 million for muni bond funds that report their flows weekly, Lipper reported.
Even though the market faced a holiday-shortened weekend, investors decided that the tax-exempt market’s fundamentals were strong enough to merit investing in municipal bond funds.
The industry remembers with almost crystal clarity how money hemorrhaged from muni bond funds between mid-November and early June, often by more than $1 billion a week. In the week of Jan. 19, investors in weekly reporting funds pulled more than $4 billion.
Assets for funds that report their flows weekly rose slightly this week to $331.6 billion from $331.3 billion the previous week.
The value of the holdings for weekly reporting funds increased by $1.96 billion. The week before, they reported an increase of $586 million.
The four-week moving average for all municipal bond mutual funds that report their flows weekly saw a $47 million outflow, down from a $359 million outflow the week before.
High-yield muni funds have also seen their first week of inflows after six straight weeks of outflows.
Funds that report weekly saw inflows of $136 million, Lipper reported. The previous week, high-yield funds reported outflows of $108 million.
Assets for high-yield funds that report their flows weekly ended at $40.80 billion, down from $41.24 billion the previous week. The value of the holdings for weekly reporting funds rose by $262 million. Last week, they rose by $143 million.
The four-week moving average for all high-yield muni bond funds that report their flows weekly was a $47 million outflow, up a bit from a $139.6 million outflow the week before.
