Bond funds accounted for $56.5bn (£45.4bn), dwarfing flows into equity funds of 31.1bn in January, while mixed asset funds took a significantly lower $9.7bn.
Unsurprisingly given the beleaguered asset class, commodity funds saw net outflows of $1.2bn.
Total assets under management (AUM) for global collective funds stood at $38trn at the end of January, an increase of $901bn, or 2.4%, over the month.
Of this, Lipper said estimated net inflows accounted for $94.7bn, while $806.3bn was down to positive market performance.
After euro-denominated money market products, which took net $26bn in January, most of the net new money went into equity US small and mid-cap funds and equity global ex-US, taking in $10.3bn and $9.6bn respectively.
Gavin Haynes, managing director at Whitechurch Securites said: “The data seems to suggest this might be down to a ‘Trump trade’; that having seen an equity rally and the subsequent sell-off of bond markets towards the end of last year we have seen something of a turnaround at the start of this year.”
Regardless of the low yields on offer, he points out how investor nervousness tends to direct flows toward safer haven asset classes.
“Investors might have been getting cold feet as the world waits to see whether any of the policies mooted by Donald Trump actually see the light of day.”
In performance terms, gold and precious metals and single-country emerging market products dominated over the month, topped by equity Argentina, which returned 13.5% over the month and 59.2% over three years.
Equity funds focused on Poland, Brazil, Morocco, Singapore and New Zealand also featured in the top 10 performing sectors, as did materials, emerging markets Asia and emerging markets Latin American funds.
