That yield was still down slightly from a near 2-1/2-year high yield of 3.04 percent over a week earlier, when investors sold bonds to brace for a cutback in the Fed's stimulus in January. Bond yields move inversely to their prices.
The outflows from stock funds reversed sizable inflows of $4.4 billion into the funds the prior week, which brought inflows to a record $251 billion in 2013. The Fed's bond-buying program kept interest rates low, fueling a record-breaking rally in U.S. stocks and inflows into stock funds.
Caution
The outflows of $2.2 billion from funds that specialize in U.S. stocks were the first in three weeks, according to data from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and EPFR Global.
The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index fell 0.5 percent over the weekly period. Investors were cautious, despite data released Wednesday from payrolls processor ADP showing U.S. private employers added a higher-than-expected 238,000 jobs in December, the strongest increase in thirteen months.
Some investors were taking profits after the S&P 500 rallied 29.6 percent in 2013, marking its best year since 1997.
"It will be difficult to repeat the S&P 500's gain," said Alan Gayle, senior investment strategist at RidgeWorth investments. "We would not be surprised if there were a pullback over the near term."
Funds that hold Japanese stocks stood out, however, with inflows of $1.7 billion, marking the largest inflows since May of last year despite a 1.2 percent decline in Japan's Nikkei average over the weekly period.
Emerging market stock funds posted outflows of $1.3 billion, marking 11 straight weeks of outflows from the funds. That marked the longest outflow streak in 11 years, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch report.
The MSCI Emerging Markets Index of global emerging market equities fell 2.7 percent over the reporting period.