Morningstar Reports U.S. Mutual Fund and Exchange-Traded Fund Flows for August 2019

CHICAGO, Sept. 13, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, today reported estimated U.S. mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) flows for August 2019. Overall, passive U.S. equity funds saw approximately $900.0 million in outflows while active U.S. equity funds had $18.9 billion in outflows. Morningstar estimates net flow for mutual funds by computing the change in assets not explained by the performance of the fund, and net flow for U.S. ETFs shares outstanding and reported net assets.

Morningstar's report about U.S. fund flows for August is available here. Highlights from the report include:

• The Federal Reserve's July interest-rate cut didn't seem to help investor confidence as long-term open-end and exchange-traded funds had combined outflows of nearly $16.0 billion in August, the greatest outflows since December 2018. Every major U.S. category group?except commodities?saw a decline in inflows or an increase in outflows compared with July.
• Money-market funds were a likely beneficiary of these long-term outflows with $80.0 billion in inflows, even though the Federal Reserve's July interest-rate cut will reduce the yield on such funds. Money-market funds have collected nearly $300.0 billion year to date, the best since 2008.
• Passive U.S. equity assets passed active U.S. equity assets by about $25.0 billion. As a result, passive share of U.S. equity open-end and ETF assets was 50.15% versus 49.85% for active funds. Over the past 10 years, active U.S. equity funds have had $1.3 trillion in outflows and their passive counterparts nearly $1.4 trillion in inflows.
• Among category groups, taxable-bond funds led with $16.3 billion in inflows, but this was the group's second-lowest total of the year. Credit-oriented high-yield and bank-loan funds had approximately $8.9 billion in combined outflows. Municipal-bond funds inflows remained strong with $9.1 billion.
• Commodities precious-metals funds had $4.7 billion in inflows, the most since February 2016. This surge might reflect investor fears of potential inflation following the Federal Reserve's July interest-rate cut.
• Despite the rough month for U.S. equity funds, Vanguard Total Stock Market Index still led all funds with $6.3 billion in inflows. Vanguard Total International Stock Index followed with $5.7 billion in inflows. Both currently have a Morningstar Analyst Ratingtm of Gold.

To view the complete report, please click here.

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Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offers an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers, retirement plan providers and sponsors, and institutional investors in the private capital markets. Morningstar provides data and research insights on a wide range of investment offerings, including managed investment products, publicly listed companies, private capital markets, and real-time global market data. Morningstar also offers investment management services through its investment advisory subsidiaries, with about $220 billion in assets under advisement and management as of June 30, 2019. The company has operations in 27 countries. For more information, visit www.morningstar.com/company. Follow Morningstar on Twitter @MorningstarInc.

Morningstar's Manager Research Group consists of various wholly owned subsidiaries of Morningstar, Inc. including, but not limited to, Morningstar Research Services LLC. Analyst Ratings are subjective in nature and should not be used as the sole basis for investment decisions. Analyst Ratings are based on Morningstar's Manager Research Group's current expectations about future events and therefore involve unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause such expectations not to occur or to differ significantly from what was expected. Analyst Ratings are not guarantees nor should they be viewed as an assessment of a fund's or a fund's or separately managed account's underlying securities' creditworthiness. This press release is for informational purposes only; references to securities or a separately managed account investment strategy in this press release should not be considered an offer or solicitation to buy or sell the securities or to invest in accordance with that strategy. 

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