July Investments in Mutual Funds Remain Steady

Net flows into stock mutual funds were about $20 billion last month, similar to the pace in June, fund tracker Lipper Inc. said Monday.

Lipper said its monthly estimates, which also showed more than $18 billion flowing into bond and money market funds, suggested investors were being cautious and reacting with some confusion to the stock market’s erratic moves in July.

Overall, the U.S. fund industry took in a net $38 billion in July, including stock and bond funds and money market funds, Lipper said.

The lion’s share of the money flowing to stock funds went to growth-style diversified funds. In fact, growth-style diversified funds took in a net $23.9 billion, while value-style funds suffered an outflow of $5 billion.

Focused funds, such as those investing in specific industry sectors and non-Pacific regions of the world, gained assets, the Lipper data showed. Those with less targeted objectives such as flexible, global flexible and balanced funds saw continuing net outflows.

Among the sectors, health-biotechnology funds had a net inflow of more than $1 billion. Science and technology funds had a net inflow of $900 million, down from the June pace.