Investors continue to Pull Money Out of the Stock Mutual Funds

Investors continue to pull money out of stock mutual funds and put in bond mutual funds.  Also balanced funds (mutual fund with both stocks and bonds) continue to do well.

From CNNMoney.com:

With the two-day market shutdown due to Hurricane Sandy, investors didn't do much with their money last week.

Overall, they pulled $488 million from long-term mutual funds in the week ended Oct. 31, according to the Investment Company Institute. . . . 

. . . . The limited activity was partly due to the closure of the US financial markets on Oct. 29 and Oct. 30 as New York City coped with the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, including widespread power outages and a halt in public transportation.

Mutual funds were closed for both redemption and purchases during those two days as well, and any transactions that investors had planned were likely pushed to later in the week, said Shelly Antoniewicz, senior economist at ICI.

But that wasn't the only reason investors sat on the sidelines. With President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney running neck-and-neck, uncertainty about the outcome of the presidential election left many investors unwilling to place any big bets.

During the shortened week, investors pulled $1.9 billion from U.S. stock mutual funds, bringing the year's total outflow to more than $110 billion.

They added just $2.6 billion to bond funds, the least since early July. So far in 2012, bond funds have attracted nearly $300 billion.

The ICI data also show that hybrid funds, which invest in both stocks and bonds and have been extremely popular among investors this year, lost $672 million last week.

Investors pulled $1.9 billion from U.S. stock mutual funds during the latest week, bringing the year's total outflow to more than $110 billion.