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BOFA CLIENTS CHECK INTO HEALTHCARE STOCKS

BofA Securities equity and quant strategist Jill Carey Hall says that last week, with the S&P 500 index .SPX down about 1%, clients were net buyers of U.S. equities (+$2.5B) for a fifth week in a row.

"Private clients were net buyers for a 12th consecutive week, the longest of any start-of-year buying streak in our data history since '08," writes Hall in her note.

Corporate client buybacks accelerated week-over-week and buyback executions YTD have remained well above typical seasonal levels. Of note, January/February buybacks as a percentage of market cap were the highest of any year since 2014.

In terms of S&P 500 groups, Hall says clients bought stocks in five of the 11 GICS sectors, led by tech, healthcare and financials.

Hall noted that healthcare saw "the largest weekly inflow in our data history since '08," with inflows in all but one week YTD. She adds that the record inflows were led by institutional clients, with hedge funds buying as well. (Healthcare, with a more than 7% advance, is the top performing S&P 500 index .SPX sector YTD).

Communication services stocks saw the biggest outflows last week, followed by utilities which Hall said has the longest recent selling streak (the last four weeks).

Regarding ETFs, Hall said clients sold equity ETFs for a second week, with outflows from growth/blend ETFs and mid cap/broad market ETFs; clients snapped up value, large cap and small cap ETFs.

Meanwhile, clients sold ETFs in 5 of the 11 sectors, led by financials ETFs (despite single stock inflows).

Tech and communication services ETFs saw the biggest inflows.

(Terence Gabriel)

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