The bank’s research team noted that ‘volatility seems to be taking its toll on risk assets flows.’
The outflows were seen across risk assets, with a withdrawal across the credit rating spectrum now spreading to equities.
Equity fund flows suffered over $4bn of outflows, the biggest in 70 weeks, tilting year-to-date cumulative flows for the sector to negative.
‘Traditionally stable assets continue to thrive’ BAML said, with inflows into both money-market and government bond funds continuing.
High grade funds recorded outflows for the sixth week in a row and were the highest in three weeks. High yield outflows slowed slightly compared to the previous week but remained negative for the eleventh week in a row.
Inflows into commodity funds rose due to record money coming into gold funds. The latest inflow was the highest ever, beating the previous record attained a week ago. The asset class has seen uninterrupted positive flows for the last seven weeks.
Emerging market debt funds continued to struggle to keep money, recording a sixth week of negative flows.