Despite market gains, March sees major fund redemptions

Investors pulled $87.6 billion out of stock, bond, mixed-equity and money market mutual funds in March, the highest net redemption total since September 2008, according to a report released today by New York-based Lipper Inc. Stock and mixed-equity funds experienced a net outflow of $34.7 billion and money market mutual funds had a net redemption of $74.8 billion for the month, Lipper found. At the same time, bond funds saw a net inflow of $21.8 billion. In the bond categories, short- and intermediate-bond funds took in $16.7 billion and long-term bond funds had an inflow of $5.1 billion. At the same time, March saw the biggest monthly stock gains in more than six years, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average posting a 7.73% gain and the Nasdaq Composite Index a gain of 10.94%, the report said. Still, domestic stock funds had the largest outflows among stock funds, with a net outflow of $16.3 billion, followed by outflows of $14.6 billion for world equity, $3.3 billion for mixed equity and $500 million for sector funds. Among sector funds, commodities funds, gold-oriented funds and global natural resources funds had inflows, while health and biotechnology funds had the largest net outflows.