LIVE MARKETS-BofA clients back to buying

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BOFA CLIENTS BACK TO BUYING

BofA Securities equity and quant strategist Jill Carey Hall says that last week, with the S&P 500 index .SPX dipping 0.4%, clients were net buyers of U.S. equities for the first time in eight weeks, driven by single stock inflows (+$3.6 billion) vs. small equity ETF outflows (-$0.5 billion).

"All major client groups (institutional clients, retail, hedge funds) were net buyers of equities (led by single stocks). Hedge funds/retail have been buyers for six/three straight weeks, while institutions were buyers for the first time in six weeks," writes Hall in her note.

She adds that clients also snapped up equities across major size segments, driven by single stocks, though micro-cap stocks saw outflows despite small-cap inflows.

Corporate client buybacks decelerated week-over-week, but remained healthy. But trailing 52-week buybacks as a percentage of market cap are now at their lowest level since December 2023.

Hall says that clients bought stocks in eight of 11 sectors, led by Communication Services and Tech.

Financials saw the biggest outflows; clients have offloaded Financials the last three weeks (including record outflows a week ago following a run-up into earnings).

Industrials have the longest selling streak (outflows for the last seven weeks).

In terms of ETFs, Hall says clients were sellers of equity ETFs, but buyers of fixed-income ETFs.

By style, outflows from Growth and Value ETFs were offset by inflows into Blend ETFs. Clients bought small-cap and broad market ETFs, but were sellers of large- and mid-cap ETFs.

Clients sold ETFs in five of 11 sectors, led by Tech even with Tech stock inflows.

Meanwhile, Industrials ETFs saw the largest inflows (their largest in our data history since 2017) despite continued single-stock outflows.

(Terence Gabriel)

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