Funds and Equity

etfs: In the case of equity products, mutual funds saw outflows this past week while stock ETFs saw inflows, an indication of how investors are preferring one structure over another, as opposed to betting on the direction of the asset class, according to Market Watch. The shift can be seen in the table of fund flows below, which covers the week ended Dec. 21; all the figures represent millions of dollars. This change can be seen in weekly flow data, where in all fund categories including equity, bond, and hybrid funds the inflows were either greater going into ETFs or the outflows were smaller, according to data from the Investment Company Institute. CategoryETFsMutual Funds Total equity119-5,106World equity1,119-1,428Hybrid funds-2,066-2,111Total Mutual funds and ETFs have similarities in that they both offer access to baskets of securities. However, ETFs also have qualities that make them increasingly attractive to investors and traders. There are even identical funds in both categories; for example, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund VFINX, -0.02% a mutual fund, and the Vanguard S&P500 ETF VOO, -0.02% Both track the S&P 500 SPX, -0.03% holding the same companies in the same proportions as the underlying index. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.