BILLIONS PUMPED INTO GLOBAL EQUITIES / THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Last updated:January 11, 2013 4:17 pm

Billions pumped into global equities

By Ralph Atkins, Mary Watkins and Robin Wigglesworth in London

 

 

Investors this week poured the most money into equity funds in more than five years, as global shares surged and a compromise deal on the US fiscal cliff boosted confidence.



Net inflows into equity funds monitored by EPFR, the the funds research company, hit $22.2bn in the week to January 9 – the highest since September 2007 and the second highest since comparable data began in 1996. Record inflows into emerging market and world funds drove much of the expansion.

 

The figures capped a week during which global equity indices hit multiyear highs, encouraging speculation about a “great rotation” this year out of safe, recession proof assets such as government bonds and into equity markets.
 
 
“It has certainly got something of that look about it,” said Cameron Brandt, EPFR research director.
 
 
“It is broadly based with strong flows into equities from retail investors and into actively managed funds. It has a different feel to it than other recent spikes in flows into equities.”
 
 
After a strong start to the year, the S&P 500 hit a five-year high this week, and erased modest losses to close unchanged, leaving it up 3.2 per cent so far this year.
 
 
In London, the FTSE 100 ended the week at 6121.58, taking it to levels last reached in May 2008. Its 3.8 per cent surge over the first full trading week marked the best start of any year since 1999. The FTSE All-World index finished at 230.67, its highest level since May 2011.
 
 
Scepticism remains, however, about whether the latest shift into equities will be sustained. “It’s a bull dream so far, not reality,” said Jim Stride, head of UK equities at Axa Investment Managers.
 
 
Adrian Cattley, European equity strategist at Citigroup, added: “Yes this is a good start to the year but we’ve seen this type of flow into equities before in January.”
 
 
In the US, investors are looking ahead to company earnings next week, while Washington has yet to raise the Federal debt ceiling and address planned spending cuts that could weigh on the economy this year. “Investors are over-optimistic on earnings and we think the debt and fiscal issues could come back to bite the market hard,” said Michael Kastner, principal at Halyard Asset Management.
 
 
 
EPFR’s latest weekly figures showed a net $7.4bn inflow into emerging market equity funds and $3.4bn into world equity funds. Inflows into US equity funds, at $10.4bn, were at a six-week high. Europe equity inflows were more modest, at less than $1bn.
 
 
Separately, Thomson Reuters’ Lipper service reported US equity funds, including exchange traded funds, took in $18.3bn in the week to January 9 – the fourth-strongest figure since it began calculating weekly flows in 1992.
 
 
The strong figures from Lipper come in the wake of the compromise deal that avoided the so-called US fiscal cliff – billions of dollars’ worth of tax cuts and spending hikes that were due to automatically kick in at the start of the year. The new budget passed by Congress increased taxes for richer Americans and extended unemployment benefits, but delayed a decision on planned spending cuts for two months.
 
 
According to the UK’s Investment Management Association, net retail sales of equity funds hit £720m in November – the highest since April 2011 – making shares the most popular asset class for investors for the third month in a row. By contrast, fixed income funds sales were the lowest since October 2008.


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Additional reporting by Michael Mackenzie in New York and Tanya Powley and Stefan Wagstyl in London



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Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013.