FYI:
As the stock markets tumbled in the runup to the New Year’s Eve, outflows accelerated. There has been a preference for holding cash and secure government bonds, as concerns over Chinese growth and rising interest rates took a toll on investor sentiment.
For the two weeks ended December 26, mutual funds experienced more than $112 billion in outflows, nearly double compared to the prior two-week period. Data for the last week of the year is not yet available, but monthly outflows are on track to reach a three-year high.
Equity mutual funds alone saw more than $52 billion in withdrawals over the two weeks ended December 26, with domestic equities especially hit. Outflows from foreign equities were smaller.
Bond mutual funds saw outflows of nearly $31 billion during the period, with all bond categories suffering withdrawals, with the exception of government bonds, which saw insignificant negative flows.
An unexpected revenue warning from Apple due to slower sales in China triggered panic in global markets. Investors started to fret that Apple’s woes signaled a falling demand in China overall. However, Apple’s troubles could be self-inflicted, as the company’s products started to lose ground to other domestic competitors, including Xiaomi and Huawei.
Despite fears of a slowdown, the U.S. job market is humming along. In the last month of 2018, the U.S. economy added 312,000 jobs, the highest showing since March, when the employment figure came in at 313,000. Analysts had expected just 179,000 jobs, while the data for November was revised upward by 21,000 to 176,000.
Hourly earnings increased by 0.4% in December, trumping estimates of 0.2%, in another signal that wages are rising healthily.
The unemployment rate rose from 3.7% to 3.9%.
Regards,
Ted
http://mutualfunds.com/news/2019/01/08/mutual-funds-scorecard-january-8-edition/ 
