By Marc Jones
LONDON (Reuters) - Donald Trump's first week in charge in the United States was the best for bond funds in four months, a good one for reflation enthusiasts and for emerging markets, fund flow data shows.
Figures from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (NYSE:BAC) (BAML), which track flows through to Wednesday, showed inflation-sensitive TIPS U.S. government bond funds notched their 31st inflow of past 33 weeks.
The money that joined all bond funds amounted to $8.6 billion. Japanese equity funds brought their cumulative three-week inflows to $8.8 billion and the highest in 16 months, while materials funds scored their 11th positive week in the past 12.
"Bottom line: investors continue to position for reflation via TIPS over munis, HY (high-yield) over gold & Japan over U.S. equities," BAML's analysts said.
"But the repositioning feels grudging and flows have yet to show big asset allocation capitulation out of bonds into stocks."
BAML's view is an 'Icarus trade' where there is "one last melt-up in risky assets" before the ground rushes up.
The weekly data showed world equities saw a tiny $0.2 billion of net inflows.
A total of $1 billion went into EM equity funds, though, their best week in three months. U.S. stocks were the main losers, with 6.3 billion of outflows which was their largest in four months.
But the data would not have captured the surge since Wednesday after the Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 20,000 points for the first time and Wall Street's other main markets also hit record highs.