Stock, investment-grade bond funds get billions in inflows: BofA

NEW YORK, Sept 6 (Reuters): Investors worldwide poured $6.2 billion into stock funds in the week ended September 3, marking their fourth straight week of inflows, data from a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research report showed on Friday.
US-focused stock funds attracted $5.8 billion of the net inflows, according to the report, which also cited data from fund-tracker EPFR Global. Emerging market equity funds attracted $700 million, marking their 13th straight week of inflows, their longest streak of net inflows since February 2013.
Appetite was still strong for fixed-income funds.
Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BofA, and Brian Leung, investment strategist at BofA, said in the BofA on Friday report that investors are "still crazy for credit" with $3 billion of net inflows to investment-grade bond funds over the latest reporting week. The latest investment-grade inflow figures mark the asset group's 37th straight week.
They said: "Investors are still in love with corporate bonds," and added that, "year-to-date flows to investment-grade bonds of $115 billion actually exceed inflows of $98 billion to stocks."
Overall, bond funds attracted $2.1 billion in new cash for the week ended Sept. 3, marking a fourth straight week of inflows. Riskier high-yield bond funds posted $32 million in outflows, while funds that mainly hold US Treasuries posted $1.4 billion in outflows.