Fixed income funds have faced record weekly outflows totalling $109bn (£93.8bn) as risk-off investors flee to money market funds instead.
The Financial Times reports that high yield and investment-grade corporate bond funds and ETFs faced their highest ever outflows in the week ended last Wednesday.
Over the same period, equity funds shed $20bn, slightly less than the record $23bn outflows they faced for the first week of March.
The fact that outflows extended from high yield funds into investment-grade and sovereign bond funds underscores the rush towards cash, the Financial Times reported.
Money market funds took in $95bn over the same period, the newspaper said using data from EPFR Global. The previous week the liquidity products had taken in a record $136bn.
Pimco, Amundi and Ashmore were among the worst performing European-domiciled bond funds since the coronavirus took hold, a separate Financial Times article reported.
But this was partially due to the currency of underlying share classes.
The $80bn Pimco Income fund fell almost 25% in a share class hedged into Brazilian real. Pimco said its main share class had fallen 11.6% and the worst-performing share classes had held $6m and $460m respectively.
The worst-performing versions of the Ashmore Emerging Markets Short Duration fund fell 24%, but the Financial Times did not clarify which share class was affected. The fund’s assets have more than halved from €6bn to €2.9bn.
