3 important money flow trends from Lipper's Tom Roseen

by Michael Tarsala

Investors closed the month of February with their highest net long exposure in 14 months, according to Lipper data, with last year's sector pariahs seeing some of the largest dollar inflows.

I talked to Tom Roseen, Lipper's research director extraordinaire, to help me put the current fund flow trends in context.

In the big picture, it's clear that some old trends persist. He says there's still far more inflows in fixed income than equities. And a lot of the new money coming into stocks tends to be directed toward dividend-focused income funds and the international markets.

But Roseen noted 3 big changes in the latest weekly data:

1) Large cap funds and ETFs saw $3.5 billion in inflows

Source: Lipper Inc.

Keep in mind, he says, that this group saw average outflows of $4.2 billion a month last year. In comparison, equity income funds averaged $2.6 billion a month in 2011. So a $3.5 billion inflow in a single week is pretty darn big. It's the largest amount of new money dedicated to the large caps since the week of December 21 (the weekly data is collected on Wednesdays).

2) Domestic funds and ETFs also saw inflows

Source: Lipper Inc.

The $6.6 billion in inflows for this group was the most since Nov. 9. Roseen is not an economist, mind you, but suggested that better economic news may be behind the increased domestic flow. This week's jobless claims fell to their lowest level since March 2008.

3) Gold ETF shines despite a pullback

Source: Lipper Inc.

Gold futures retrenched to a 5-week low last week. The metal fell $90 intraday on Wednesday, as traders bet that more Fed stimulus was unlikely. Yet the SPDR Gold ETF (GLD) continued to see inflows, to the tune of $688 million, as of the end of Wednesday. The majority of that inflow seemed to come on the big Wednesday dip, according to the latest from Brendan Conway over at Barron's.

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