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AMID LAST WEEK'S CARNAGE, BOFA CLIENTS STEPPED UP

BofA Securities equity and quant strategist Jill Carey Hall says that last week, with the S&P 500 index .SPX collapsing just over 9%, clients were net buyers of $8.0 billion of U.S. equities. This marked the fourth-largest weekly inflow in BofA's data history since 2008.

Clients bought both single stocks and ETFs, with inflows across all three size segments.

"All client groups were buyers, led by institutional clients (first inflows in three weeks/biggest inflows since Dec.). Private clients - who have been buyers for 17 weeks straight (longest start-of-year buying streak in our data history) - had their sixth-largest inflow on record. Hedge funds were small net buyers for the first time since early Feb," writes Hall in her note.

She adds that corporate client buybacks increased and are tracking above typical seasonal levels for the first time in five weeks.

In terms of GICS sectors, Hall says that clients bought stocks in nine of the 11 groups, led by tech and industrials.

Only consumer discretionary and utilities saw outflows.

Hall notes that the spread between cyclical and defensive flows has been positive for the last four weeks, suggesting to her that clients have not been positioning for a recession.

As for ETFs, clients bought across all sizes and styles (large/mid/small/broad market and blend/value), except growth.

Most sectors saw ETF inflows with financial and discretionary ETFs leading the charge. Energy ETFs posted the biggest outflows.

(Terence Gabriel)

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