Investors rack up U.S. money market funds for a third straight week

(Reuters) – Money continued to flow into safer U.S. money market funds for a third consecutive week as investors remained unsettled about the banking sector crisis, with slowdown worries also affecting the sentiment.

According to Refinitiv Lipper data, U.S. money market funds received a net $59.31 billion worth of inflows in the week to March 29. They have received about $273.3 billion worth of inflows so far this month.

Meanwhile, investors turned net sellers of $20.68 billion worth of U.S. equity funds after $10.17 billion worth of net purchases in the previous week.

They exited large, small and mid-cap equity funds of $8.25 billion, $2.43 billion and $1 billion, respectively.

Among sector funds, financials, industrials and consumer staples saw withdrawals of $931 million, $617 million and $499 million, respectively, although tech received $926 million worth of inflows after witnessing outflows for six weeks in a row.

Meanwhile, investors turned net sellers of U.S. bond funds with disposals of $1.37 billion after about $2.87 billion worth net purchases in the previous week.

They sold high yield and short/intermediate investment-grade funds of $2.28 billion and $2.2 billion, respectively, but government funds drew a net $4.08 billion, marking a seventh weekly inflow in a row.

(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)