Bank of America Corp. clients from retail investors to hedge fund managers sold into last week’s slump, dumping stocks across every industry, according to the bank’s data.
While the S&P 500 Index fell 3.5%, BofA clients unloaded equities from all 11 major sectors in the S&P for the first time in five years, logging the largest weekly outflow since April 2021, the bank’s strategists led by Jill Carey Hall wrote in a note Tuesday.
Institutions were the biggest net sellers, dumping stocks for the third straight week and posting their sixth-largest outflow since the bank started tracking data in 2008. Retail clients were sellers for a second week, while hedge funds sold for the first time in three weeks.
BofA clients offloaded single stocks, indiscriminate of market capitalization. Exchange-traded funds also saw small outflows, mainly in growth-oriented areas, though investors snapped up broad-market focused ETFs.
“Clients bought ETFs in eight of the 11 sectors, with the biggest inflows into materials ETFs (unlike in single stocks where clients were big net sellers) while clients sold financials, real estate and health care ETFs,” the strategists wrote.
