Aug 21 (Reuters) – U.S. investors were net buyers of equity funds for a second straight week through August 19, supported by a strong earnings season and cooler inflation data, even as a bond-market selloff and rising oil prices weighed on markets.
Investors bought a net $11.72 billion of U.S. equity funds during the week, the largest weekly inflow since July 29, LSEG Lipper data showed.
Anthropic projected strong revenue growth earlier this week, adding to fund investors’ enthusiasm over a robust earnings season in which about 85% of the 468 S&P 500 companies that have reported results beat average analyst estimates, according to LSEG data.
Investors await Nvidia’s results next week for clues on demand for AI infrastructure and data-center revenue.
Major U.S. indices, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite, meanwhile, fell 1.32%, 0.87% and 1.00%, respectively, on Thursday as rising Treasury yields and a rally in crude oil prices dented risk appetite.
U.S. large-cap and multi-cap equity funds drew inflows of $9.58 billion and $1.36 billion, respectively, during the week. Mid-cap and small-cap funds, however, recorded outflows of $809 million and $70 million, respectively.
Meanwhile, investors withdrew a net $3.1 billion from U.S. sectoral funds. They pulled $1.87 billion from financial funds, $623 million from consumer staples funds and $444 million from industrial funds, while investing $287 million in technology funds.
U.S. bond funds attracted net inflows of $9.92 billion during the week, the largest weekly total since July 15.
Investors bought $2.63 billion of general domestic taxable fixed-income funds, $1.93 billion of short-to-intermediate investment-grade funds, and $1.93 billion of short-to-intermediate government and Treasury funds.
Money market funds recorded net outflows of $3.57 billion, ending a two-week streak of inflows.
(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra; editing by Barbara Lewis)
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