LONDON (Reuters) - Investors worldwide poured a net $18.3 billion into bonds and equity funds in the past week, Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) said on Friday, amid rising hopes of interest rate cuts by the U.S. Federal Reserve.
Rising hopes of interest cuts have attracted investors to take risky bets with equities getting $6.2 billion inflows in the week to July 17. U.S. equity inflows were at $5.3 billion, while other regions saw outflows.
Some $12.1 billion flowed into bonds, the 28th straight week of additions, taking the total for the year so to $455 billion as investors pile into safe-haven assets due to the ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions, which has started to dent the global economy.
That year to date total compares with $1.7 trillion inflows over the past ten years, the bank said.
With the first-half equity redemptions standing at $151 billion, BAML said "hemorrhaging" at equity funds has stopped recently with $11 billion flowing into the asset class in the past six weeks.
But there was no respite for Europe as outflows from equities in the region continued, the BAML data showed.
(Reporting by Thyagaraju Adinarayan; editing by Josephine Mason)
