By Senad Karaahmetovic
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) clients poured $2 billion into U.S. equities last week when the S&P 500 dropped 1%. This marks the third consecutive week where the bank’s clients were net buyers of U.S. equities, according to the bank’s strategist Jill Carey Hall.
Clients were buying single stocks and selling ETFs. They also bought large and small caps but sold mid-caps. As far as client groups are concerned, retail and institutional clients again led the buying while hedge funds returned to selling after buying in the previous week.
The strategist also noted that clients were mostly buying Energy, Materials, and Real Estate stocks, with inflows in Energy the fifth-largest in BofA’s weekly data history.
On the other hand, Health Care and Tech stocks saw the largest outflows last week.
“Clients are still not positioning for a recession: similar to last week (and the 1H), cyclical sector flows have outpaced defensive sector flows. Rolling 4-wk avg. flows into defensive sectors in aggregate have actually been negative since late May. And the two sectors which have seen cumulative outflows YTD are defensives: Utilities (a top performer in stagflationary backdrops along with Energy) and Health Care,” Carey Hall wrote in a client note.