EPFR Releases Preliminary 1Q17 Flow Data

The U.S. equity and money market groups brought in $34 billion in fresh money in the first quarter of 2017, down from the $41 billion recorded in the fourth quarter, EPFR Global said on Friday. Last week, Citi’s chief equity strategist, Tobias Levkovich, said in an RIA Channel webinar that he has been talking to more bears than bulls lately, with most of his clients having no real conviction on market direction at this time. Based on EPFR data, Japan came in second after the U.S. with $24.2 billion in inflows, up tremendously from the $143 million recorded in the fourth quarter. Japan has been the new darling of advanced economies, with hedge fund manager Jordi Visser over at Weiss forecasting late last year that Japan was his favorite. He reiterated the call again in January. The iShares MSCI Japan (EWJ 70,92 +0,27 +0,38%) has paid off for investors over 12 months, beating the Vanguard FTSE Europe (VGK 66,41 +0,11 +0,17%) and SPDR S&P 500 (SPY 515,71 +2,85 +0,56%). The ETF has definitely been a laggard this year, however. Western Europe has sprung to life, registering $719 million of inflows in the first quarter following $9.4 billion in outflows in the fourth. Last year, European equity funds saw a record $113.3 billion fly out of its securities markets. Within Europe, Germany takes the lion share of the flow with $317 million in the first. Developed market equity funds brought in $96.8 billion in the first three months of the year, nearly triple the fourth quarter and up from the $189.5 billion that was sold out of the developed market last year. By comparison, emerging markets registered an estimated $13.3 billion in new money, besting fourth quarter outflows of $7.8 billion, EPFR Global said.