Long-term U.S. funds saw their lowest levels of inflows last year since 2008, Morningstar reported Friday.
The inflow of assets for long-term U.S. funds was $157 billion during 2018, Morningstar said in its year-end report of mutual fund and exchange-traded fund asset flows.
At the same time, money market funds had their strongest year since 2008 with inflows of $57 billion.
Morningstar estimates net flow for mutual funds by computing the change in assets not explained by the performance of the fund.
Investors placed $207 billion into passive U.S. equity funds and pulled $174 billion out of active U.S. equity funds during the year.
The two Morningstar categories with the highest inflows in 2018 were large-blend funds and foreign large-blend funds. Large-blend funds had strong inflows of $91.5 billion, while foreign large-blend funds collected nearly $91 billion in 2018.
Vanguard Total International Stock Market Index had the highest inflows. The index has Morningstar Analyst Rating of Gold with $50.2 billion in new flows. Gold-rated Vanguard Total Stock Market Index was the runner-up with $49.2 billion of inflows.
For the top 10 largest U.S. fund families, iShares saw the highest monthly inflows in December with a firm record $36.1 billion, which was more than triple the runner-up of Vanguard’s $11.4 billion in inflows. For the year, iShares' $136 billion trailed Vanguard's $161 billion, but it saw stronger fourth-quarter inflows of $63 billion versus Vanguard's $31 billion, Morningstar said.