'Equity MF investors shun market rally'

In fact, for 10 out of the last 11 weeks, U.S. domiciled equity mutual funds have had net outflows, according to Lipper, a Thomson Reuters' service.

Even when including exchange traded funds, which are generally believed to represent the investment behavior of institutional investors, equities overall had net outflows of over $2.8 billion during the week.

Mutual funds are thought to reflect retail investment behavior.

In the latest weekly reporting period, the U.S. benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 stock index rose over 1.2 percent. In the last 11 weeks, the index has risen 8.45 percent.

On a price return comparison basis over the last 11 weeks, the Barclays U.S. Aggregate bond index has returned 4.83 percent.

It was pretty much business as usual this last week. Equity fund investors remain unconvinced of this rally despite a week when the market was up more than 1 percent. They withdrew $2.4 billion for an eighth straight week of withdrawals, the biggest amount in the last two months, said Jeff Tjornehoj, head of Lipper Americas Research. Taxable bond funds pulled in $2.55 billion, a 13th consecutive week of inflows. However, the volume of fresh cash for the sector was down over 36 percent from the prior period.

Money market funds saw nearly $9 billion in net redemptions.

Tax-free municipal bond funds

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