LONDON, April 12 () - A heady mix of fear about the global outlook and FOMO -- fear of missing out -- saw investment-grade (IG) bond funds attract their second biggest weekly inflows last week and also post their best Monday ever.
Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML), parsing weekly data from flow tracking specialist EPFR, said $11.3 billion had been pumped into IG-focused bond funds over the last week while $2.6 billion had left stocks funds.
A $12.8 billion outflow from mutual funds was the pain point in equities.
Moving to commodities and equities, BAML analysts said that, in terms of returns, the asset classes had seen their best first-quarter starts ever.
At over 90 percent annualised returns, commodities are tracking the strongest in the past 100 years.
Benchmark Brent crude has risen by a third since the beginning of the year, while global stocks have risen 14 percent.
In equities, the bank kept its second-quarter target for the U.S. benchmark S&P 500 index at more than 3,000 points - a 3.9 percent upside from current levels.
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