Mutual fund assets grow despite outflows, ICI says

Mutual fund assets grew by 2.3% in March, according to a report released by the Investment Company Institute. Assets grew to $9.249 trillion, reflecting an increase of $211.2 billion from February, the report said. Stock funds had the biggest growth among the categories, with a 7.3% increase in assets, followed by hybrid funds, with 4.2%. Hybrid funds invest in both stocks and bonds. Still, stock and hybrid funds both posted outflows for the month. Stock funds shed $27.54 billion in March, representing an increase from the $24.88 billion in outflows in February. World equity funds, which invest largely overseas, had an outflow of $11.14 billion, and funds that invest primarily in the United States posted a outflow of $16.4 billion, the ICI said. Hybrid funds had an outflow of $4.05 billion for the month. At the same time, bond funds had a inflow of $21.03 billion, the ICI of Washington reported. In February, bond funds had an inflow of $16.97 billion. Taxable-bond funds posted an inflow of $17.69 billion, and municipal bond funds had a $3.34 billion inflow for the month. Money market mutual funds had an outflow of $77.02 billion, the ICI said.