Investors bought US stocks for the first time in a month last week, with purchases from hedge funds outweighing continued selling from both institutional and retail traders, according to Bank of America Corp.’s client flow data.
American equities lured $2.3 billion in the five-day span, BofA strategists including Jill Carey Hall and Savita Subramanian wrote in a note to clients. The S&P 500 barely budged in that period, and was down about 1% at 12:15 p.m. in New York on Tuesday.
Hedge funds snapped up stocks for a second consecutive week, with a jump in buybacks among BofA’s corporate clients also contributing to the overall intake for the asset class. Insider purchases of shares accelerated to the highest level since October.
The activity comes during a period of stagnation across US equity markets, with many investors on the sidelines ahead of earnings from tech giants and next week’s Federal Reserve’s policy gathering.
Technology shares led purchases, notching the largest inflows in three months, according to BofA. The rush to that industry is a continuation of a trend that has dominated positioning this year.
Elsewhere, financial stocks saw their first inflows in four weeks on the heels of solid earnings from big banks and better-than-feared results from smaller, regional peers. Meanwhile, consumer discretionary names and industrials were at the fore of withdrawals.
“Our positioning work suggests long-only funds have purged cyclical positioning in all sectors but industrials,” the team led by Carey Hall wrote.
BofA also highlighted that clients bought single stocks while selling exchange-traded funds last week.
“Cumulative flows YTD have suggested a record spread between stock inflows vs. ETF outflows,” the strategists wrote.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.