Strong start to the year continues, according to Morningstar

Morningstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, today reported estimated U.S. mutual fund asset flows through February 2013. The strong start to the year continued, as investors added $51.9 billion to long-term open-end mutual funds in February to build on inflows of $87.2 billion in January. With inflows of $18.6 billion, taxable-bond funds topped all asset classes for the month, but international-stock funds, which took in $16.5 billion, were not far behind.

Additional highlights from Morningstar's report on mutual fund flows:

• Diversified emerging-markets funds saw the strongest inflows among Morningstar categories in February, collecting $6.2 billion.
• Even though it may not be a clear sign of a rotation out of bonds and into stocks, investors are taking on more risk. Precious metals, money market, and most government bond funds saw outflows, while bank loan and emerging-markets bond offerings captured new assets. Even less diversified offerings like sector funds also saw strong inflows.
• Bronze-rated PIMCO Unconstrained Bond led all active funds with inflows of $2.2 billion in February, and Gold-rated Eaton Vance Floating Rate, with new assets of $1.1 billion, led the recently popular bank-loan category.

To view the complete report, please visit http://www.global.morningstar.com/febflows13. To view a video recapping February's U.S. asset flow trends, please visit http://bit.ly/feb2013flows. For more information about Morningstar Asset Flows, please visit http://global.morningstar.com/assetflows.