Industry inflows fell by a third last week (after nearly tripling the week before), thanks largely to a 58.8-percent drop in flows into taxable bond funds, according to the latest data from the folks at a mutual fund industry trade group.

Today, the Investment Company Institute (ICI) team reports that an estimated $19.58 billion net flowed into ETFs and long-term, open-end mutual funds for the week ended October 1. (Money-market funds and funds-of-funds, as well as other asset management products like CITs and separate accounts, are not included.) That's a $9.901-billion net flows fall week-over-week from the week ended on September 24*, yet it extends the industry's inflows streak to eight weeks.

Traditional, long-term, open-end mutual funds suffered an estimated $20.308 billion in net outflows for the week ended October 1, according to the ICI folks, up by $5.272 billion W/W. Meanwhile, ETFs brought in an estimated $39.887 billion in net inflows last week, down by $4.63 billion W/W.

Fixed income dominated industry inflows yet again last week. Per ICI's data, an estimated $9.933 billion net flowed into bond funds and ETFs in the week ended October 1, down by $12.08 billion W/W. $8.685 billion of that (down by $12.4 billion W/W) flowed into taxable bond funds and ETFs, while $1.248 billion (up by $293 million W/W) flowed into municipal bond funds and muni ETFs.

Equity funds and ETFs brought in an estimated $6.163 billion in net inflows for the week ended October 1, up by $2.125 billion W/W. Domestic equity funds and ETFs accounted for $5.102 billion of that (up by $1.394 billion W/W), while world equity funds and ETFs brought in the remaining $1.061 billion (up by $731 million W/W).

Commodity funds (well, ETFs) brought in an estimated $4.328 billion in net inflows for the week ended October 1. That's down by $330 million W/W.

Yet one major fund category still had a rough time last week. Hybrid funds and ETFs suffered an estimated $845 million in net outflows for the week ended October 1. That's down by $384 million W/W.

*Editor's Note: The ICI folks note that they also regularly revise the past weeks' flows data, "because of adjustments, reclassifications, and changes in the number of funds reporting." Thus, the week-to-week flows changes may not quite line up perfectly with the numbers in MFWire's coverage of prior weeks' flows. 

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