Trends in Mutual Fund Investing
April 2001

Washington, DC, May 30, 2001 - The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds increased by 4.8 percent to $6.945 trillion in April, according to the Investment Company Institute's official survey of the mutual fund industry. In the survey, mutual fund companies report actual assets, sales and redemptions to the ICI.

Here is how the assets of the six major fund categories changed in the past month:

Table 1.
Net assets of mutual funds
(billions of dollars)

	Apr 2001	Mar 2001	% chg	Dec 2000
Stock Funds	3,718.6	3,408.0	9.1	3,962.3
Hybrid Funds	348.0	333.4R	4.4	349.7
Taxable Bond Funds	566.1	566.8R	-0.1	530.1
Municipal Bond Funds	280.9	286.0R	-1.8	277.9
Taxable Money Market Funds	1,792.1	1,786.2R	0.3	1,607.2
Tax-Free Money Market Funds	239.5	249.3R	-3.9	238.1
Total	6,945.2	6,629.7R	4.8	6,965.2

R=revised data

Highlights: Assets of stock funds rose by $310.6 billion in April. Net new cash flow into stock funds was $19.25 billion last month, compared with an outflow of $20.57 billion in March. The cash flow into domestic stock funds was $17.45 billion in April, compared with an outflow of $15.68 billion in March. World equity funds had cash flow of $1.80 billion in April, compared with a $4.89 billion outflow in March. Among stock funds, only emerging markets funds had an outflow last month, $31 million.

Assets of money market mutual funds decreased by $3.85 billion to $2.031 trillion in April. Assets of municipal money market funds declined by $9.77 billion. Taxable money market fund assets grew by $5.92 billion. Money market funds that are offered primarily to individuals reported an outflow of $38.62 billion during the month, compared with an inflow of $29.52 billion in March. Retail money market funds often have outflows at this time of year as individuals make tax payments in mid-April.

Money market funds offered primarily to institutions reported an inflow of $28.17 billion in April.

Table 2.
Net new cash flow of long-term funds
(millions of dollars)

	Apr 2001	Mar 2001	YTD 2001	YTD 2000
New Sales	83,563	84,283R	364,406	551,149R
Redemptions	-66,993	-93,647R	-330,199	-398,700R
Net Exchanges	2,683	-11,208R	-13,629	23,450R
Net New Cash Flow	19,253	-20,572R	20,578	175,900R

Hybrid Mutual Funds

	Apr 2001	Mar 2001	YTD 2001	YTD 2000
New Sales	6,209	5,974R	24,642	21,522R
Redemptions	-4,846	-5,962R	-21,323	-30,237R
Net Exchanges	-6	-413R	-76	-10,236R
Net New Cash Flow	1,357	-401R	3,243	-18,951R

Taxable Bond Mutual Funds

	Apr 2001	Mar 2001	YTD 2001	YTD 2000
New Sales	16,973	21,454R	75,689	49,077R
Redemptions	-14,069	-17,097R	-56,429	-62,119R
Net Exchanges	-343	2,483R	4,453	-10,559R
Net New Cash Flow	2,561	6,839R	23,713	-23,601R

Municipal Bond Mutual Funds

	Apr 2001	Mar 2001	YTD 2001	YTD 2000
New Sales	3,596	4,411R	18,117	12,479
Redemptions	-4,408	-3,635R	-15,223	-21,803
Net Exchanges	-424	272	65	-2,434
Net New Cash Flow	-1,236	1,049R	2,958	-11,758

R=revised

Table 3.
Net new cash flow of money market funds
(millions of dollars)

	Apr 2001	Mar 2001	YTD 2001	YTD 2000
Net New Cash Flow	-10,443	13,638R	164,944	17,010

R=revised

Table 4.
Liquid assets of stock mutual funds
(percent of total net assets)

Apr 2001	Mar 2001	Apr 2000
5.5%	5.8%	4.9%

Table 5.
Annualized rate of redemptions from stock funds
(percent of average net assets)

Apr 2001	Mar 2001	Apr 2000
24.5%	25.4%R	23.6%

R=revised

Table 6.
Annualized rate of redemptions and redemption exchanges from stock funds
(percent of average net assets)

Apr 2001	Mar 2001	Apr 2000
39.0%	39.3%	37.6%

Table 7.
Number of mutual funds in this report

	Apr 2001	Mar 2001	Apr 2000
Stock Funds	4,542	4,511R	4,060R
Hybrid Funds	511	516R	528R
Taxable Bond Funds	1,332	1,324R	1,370R
Municipal Bond Funds	858	860R	888
Taxable Money Market Funds	697	698	697
Tax-free Money Market Funds	340	340R	340
Total	8,280	8,249R	7,883

R=revised