Another week, another retail outflow from domestic equity mutual funds - but this time it's different. Now 11 weeks-in-a-row of outflows have led to this week's highest outflow since August 2011 - just as stocks hit multi-year highs. It seems no matter how much Bernanke says 'come on in, the water is fine', the newly-smart money (or fooled one too many times perhaps - is it any wonder when only yesterday CNBC was discussing Selling AAPL Puts as a viable strategy?) of the retail investor is smelling sharks and fading the strength. With $250bn in outflows since the start of 2011, and $50bn alone in the last 11 weeks (as the market inexorably rises on Johnny-5's instruction), we can't help but think this week's $10.6bn outflow is redemptions at the end of Q3 - not exactly what the performance-chasing, money-on-the-sideline-hoping, recovery-is-around-the-corner-believing long-only commission-taking 'managers' wanted to see.
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Data: ICI [3]