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BOFA CLIENTS RIDE THE RALLY BUS

BofA Securities equity and quant strategist Jill Carey Hall says that last week, with the S&P 500 index .SPX advancing 4.6%, clients were net buyers of U.S. equities (+$6.1 billion) after selling the prior week.

Clients bought both single stocks and ETFs, while all ETF sizes saw inflows.

"Private & institutional clients were buyers while hedge fund clients were sellers for a third week. Private clients have been buyers for 19 weeks straight (longest start-of-year buying streak in our data history, since '08)," writes Hall in her note.

Hall adds that "Private clients have been buyers of both ETFs and single stocks YTD (though they sold single stocks last week) - which if this trend were to persist would be the first year of single stock buying by this group. They've bought stocks in 7 of the 11 sectors YTD."

Corporate client buybacks accelerated week-over-week, and are tracking above typical seasonal levels for a fourth straight week.

Hall said that clients bought stocks in six of the 11 GICS sectors last week, led by tech and consumer discretionary. At nine weeks, materials continues to have the longest recent buying streak.

Staples and communication services led outflows and utilities have been offloaded in 10 of the past 12 weeks despite YTD outperformance.

Clients were net buyers of stocks in cyclical sectors vs net sellers of stocks in defensive sectors, which Hall says, is a continuation of the trend seen most weeks since early March.

In terms of ETFs, Hall says that clients bought equity ETFs for the second consecutive week. They purchased all styles (value/growth/blend) and large cap/broad market. However, clients sold small- and mid-cap ETFs.

Most sectors saw ETF outflows, led by industrials, materials, and healthcare ETFs. Consumer discretionary ETFs scored the biggest inflows.

(Terence Gabriel)

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