Morningstar: International, emerging markets lead the way for record year

Morningstar, a leading provider of independent investment research, today reported estimated U.S. mutual fund asset flows for November 2013. Long-term mutual funds attracted inflows of $14.5 billion during the month to bring year-to-date inflows to $258.8 billion, a pace that should make 2013 the strongest for yearly inflows since 2009. Robust inflows combined with equity-market appreciation have pushed mutual fund assets to a record $10.8 trillion, up 30 percent since the peak seen in October 2008 prior to the financial crisis. Morningstar estimates net flow by computing the change in assets not explained by the performance of the fund.

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

• International-equity funds had the most inflows by category group, collecting $15.6 billion in November to reach $132.2 billion for the year to date. Foreign large blend led all international-equity categories in year-to-date flows, followed by diversified emerging markets.
• Overall, equity funds took in $198.0 billion through November and are on track for their strongest year since 2000. U.S.-equity funds, which attracted new assets of $42.4 billion so far in 2013, are poised for their first year of inflows since 2006. While passive funds accounted for most of these U.S.-equity-fund inflows, outflows from active U.S.-equity funds have moderated.
• Alternative mutual funds saw record inflows of $37.1 billion for the year to date, a 41 percent organic growth rate. The category group had inflows virtually every month over the past five years, but assets in the group make up just 1.2 percent of long-term mutual fund assets. Eight funds in the alternative category group had year-to-date inflows of more than $1.0 billion.
• Bank loan led all taxable-bond categories in year-to-date inflows, followed by nontraditional bond; intermediate-term bond and government bond experienced the largest outflows.
• With inflows of $65.3 billion through November and 25 percent of industry inflows, Vanguard is set to top all mutual fund providers for the third year in a row. Vanguard has been first or second in terms of annual inflows by provider since 1994. DFA, behind strong inflows for its international-equity and taxable-bond offerings, is second in year-to-date inflows with $21.0 billion, its strongest year on record.  

To view the complete report, please visit http://www.global.morningstar.com/novflows13. To view a video recapping November's U.S. asset flow trends, please visit http://bit.ly/nov2013flows. For more information about Morningstar Asset Flows, please visit http://global.morningstar.com/assetflows.