Stock market investors invested a record amount of money in U.S. equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds last week as the Dow Jones Industrial Average passed another milestone and the S&P 500 Index also touched a record.
BofA Global Research said on Friday that inflows of U.S. stocks hit a weekly record of $ 56.76 billion in the week ending March 17, a sharp increase from the $ 16.83 billion in the last week. The Dow DJIA,
on March 17 it closed above 33,000 for the first time, while the S&P 500 SPX,
it also ended in an all-time high.
Read: Dow Scores Fastest 1,000-Point Move In History As It Passes The 33,000 Milestone – Here’s What Got It There
BOFA Global Research
Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs estimated that net flows to global equity funds reached a nominal record of $ 68 billion in the week ending March 17, which when it scaled to the level of mutual fund capital assets was the largest since December 2014.
The increase was largely due to higher net inflows into the US market, which coincided with the initial distribution of stimulus checks of up to $ 1,400 to qualified US citizens as part of the enacted $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. by President Joe Biden previously. this month, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a note on Friday.
As of March 17, the Treasury had distributed $ 242 billion in stimulus checks, or about 60% of the expected total.
“These payments may be making their way into mutual funds and ETFs, as well as other assets,” Goldman analysts wrote. “All industry categories posted positive net inflows during the week; the largest net purchases as a percentage of [asssets under management] they were from industries and telecommunications.
Surveys have attempted to measure the number of stimulus checks that are likely to hit the market, including through purchases of individual stocks and purchases of other assets, including bitcoin.
Watch: Americans ready to invest $ 40 billion in bitcoin and the stock market as stimulus checks roll in
Both the S&P 500 and the Dow were pulled from Wednesday’s records as an ongoing selloff in the Treasury market boosted the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y,
to a 14-month high above 1.75% on Thursday.
BofA said that government bond fund inflows weakened to just $ 60 million from $ 1.18 billion the previous week amid still high rate volatility, while municipalities and mortgages saw inflows of $ 1.09 billion and $ 300 million, respectively, not far from the $ 990 million and $ 470 million observed. One week before.