Long-term mutual funds recorded their smallest monthly intake this year, with $14.1 billion in new assets in May, according to a report by Morningstar.  

Among the broad asset classes, taxable-bond funds showed the greatest decline in inflows, from $16.9 billion in April to $7.7 billion in May, and U.S-stock funds saw their 13th consecutive month of outflows, according to the report.

Although actively managed stock funds-both U.S. and international-have suffered outflows of more than $172.3 billion over the past 12 months, a subset of these, dividend-focused equity-income funds, have bucked the trend and seen inflows of $21.7 billion over the same period, the report said.

After five straight months of strong inflows, high-yield bond funds saw net outflows of $1.2 billion in May as prices fell, but the volume of money leaving open-end funds was relatively small compared with past pullbacks.

Vanguard, led by inflows to its index funds, and JPMorgan had the greatest provider-level inflows during the month. However, MFS was a close third, fueled by inflows of $1.3 billion for MFS Value. American Funds notched its 35th consecutive month of outflows.

Although money market funds reversed four straight months of outflows, inflows were a negligible $1.4 billion in May.

For a complete report, got to www.global.morningstar.com/mayflows12.

-Jim McConville