“Worst Case” Confirmed: Biggest Weekly Fund Outflow In History
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Thu, 02/08/2018
If it seems like it was just a few days ago that we reported of the biggest ever inflow into equities, it’s because that’s precisely when it happened. It was then that according to BofA CIO Michael Hartnett, we observed a “non-stop euphoria cabaret” in which markets saw a record $33.2bn inflow to equity funds, record $12.2bn inflow to active funds, $1.5bn into gold (50-week high), as well as record inflows to tech & TIPS.
Incidentally, that was the day the S&P hit its all time high, and more importantly, the day BofA also said that its euphoria and panic-buying driven “sell signal” was just triggered for the first time in 5 years, and predicted a 12% selloff in the next three months.
In retrospect, it took just two weeks because that post marked the peak of the market, and it has been non-stop selling since.
But much more troubling than the selling, is the composition: after all, as we showed earlier, the “worst case scenario” according to both JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley is if the liquidation panic was not just systematic funds and various quants puking as a result of the surge in the VIX, but if ordinary retail investors had also joined in: that would be a nightmare outcome for the bulls, as it would mean that the sharp but concentrated relentless selloff, had spread to the broader investing world, and institutions would have no choice but to join.
Specifically, this is what JPM said over the weekend when observing the recent record fund inflows:
If these equity ETF flows start reversing, not only would the equity market retrench, but the resultant rise in bond-equity correlation would likely induce de-risking by risk parity funds and balanced mutual funds, magnifying the eventual equity market sell-off.
And then there was Morgan Stanley:
Today’s moves lower are likely not being driven by systematic supply – this appears to be more discretionary selling. Systematic supply from vol target strategies is largely out of the way now, while consensus trades are getting hit: NDX is underperforming SPX, momentum is down 1%, and the Passive Factor is up, indicating actively held names are underperforming names better held by passive funds.
The Rest…HERE
