SECURITIES

Mutual Fund Purchases Slow: Investors’ appetite for the funds continued to slip in September, though purchases remain at a relatively high level. Total purchases of stock and bond funds were $29.4 billion in September, down from $29.8 billion in August and $31.8 billion in July, the Investment Company Institute said. A more important measure of demand--”net new cash flow,” which is purchases adjusted for redemptions and for exchanges among funds in the same firm--totaled $12.5 billion in September, down from $12.8 billion in August. Stock funds attracted $4.5 billion in net new cash flow in September, up from $3.5 billion in August. But bond fund demand slumped as the interest-rate outlook turned cloudy. Net new cash flow into bond funds was $8.0 billion in September versus $9.3 billion in August.