Best Positioned
Diversified managers such as Invesco Ltd., BlackRock Inc. and Franklin Resources Inc. are the firms best prepared to capitalize on the environment, Morningstar's Warren said. Invesco, based in Atlanta, bought Morgan Stanley's Van Kampen mutual funds last year, giving it a broader domestic base. San Mateo, California-based Franklin has 89 percent of its assets outside of domestic equities. The Templeton Global Bond Fund attracted $10.9 billion through June, the most of any U.S. mutual fund.
BlackRock of New York, the world's largest asset manager with $3.66 trillion assets under management, owns iShares, the biggest provider of ETFs.
Vanguard, which has about half its mutual-fund assets in index funds, saw net deposits of $30 billion this year through July, according to Morningstar. At Pacific Investment Management Co., the Newport Beach, California-based manager of the world's biggest bond fund, investors put in $25 billion this year.
Not all investors are panicking or leaving the market.
'Pleasantly Surprised'
"Generally, they're holding tight, and I've been pleasantly surprised," Kevin O'Reilly, a financial adviser based in Phoenix, said in a telephone interview. "I haven't gotten, really, nearly as many calls panicking as I thought I would have."
Investors may be getting used to the volatility, which isn't necessarily a good thing, said Lee Ann Knight, a financial adviser in Bedford, Massachusetts.
"They may be immune to worrying about it when they should be," she said. "What surprised me is that I have had a few phone calls from people wanting to use this opportunity to invest. That's great, that's good, but I feel like I had these conversations for 10 years, and people were like, 'No way, no way." '