Recent buying and selling patterns in exchange traded funds suggest investors are rediscovering their appetite for risk after last month’s lightning sell-off in equities.
According to the most recent data, investors are buying stock ETFs and dumping gold funds, for example.
The S&P 500 is still positive for the week despite Thursday’s move lower, although the August nonfarm payrolls report on Friday is the week’s big economic data release and could shake things up.
U.S. exchange traded products posted total inflows of $8.2 billion last week as stocks reversed four straight lowing weeks, according to Deutsche Bank. Buying was driven in part by expectations the Federal Reserve may announce additional stimulus for the economy.
“Maybe it was the fact that investors decided to book some profits on the recent gold surge, or maybe it was the fact that markets expected a repetition of last year’s Jackson Hole speech with its corresponding QE3 announcement,” Deutsche Bank analysts led by Shan Lan wrote in a report emailed Thursday.
“The reality is that after four weeks of outright risk off trade, long-only ETP flow patterns were significantly reversed during last week,” they said. “Long only equity ETPs received almost $11 billion of inflows by the end of Friday, while gold ETPs experienced the largest weekly outflows ($3.5 billion) since the recent gold surge began.”
Inflows to ETFs tracking cyclical sectors are another hint of improved sentiment, Deutsche Bank added.
“Although the surge in risk appetite was significant in terms of both performance and flow size, there hasn’t been any material changes in the economic outlook or monetary policy that we could see supporting a shift in the risk trade direction; therefore, we consider last week’s flow a warning more than a clear shift signal,” the analysts wrote.
“We believe that the next couple of sets of weekly cash flow data should give us more information to confirm last week’s flows as either a pause or the reversal of the risk off trade.”