A $10 billion wipeout over the last week has compounded the worst start to a year for equity flows since 2008, Bank of America Merrill Lynch strategists said on Friday.
Citing data from flow-tracker EPFR, BAML’s analysts said just over $60 billion has now been yanked out of equities since the start of the year. Almost $80 billion has been pulled from developed markets while just over $18 billion has gone into emerging markets.
They added that $8.8 billion has been poured into bonds over the last week, $1.2 billion had left gold funds while “Europe = Japan” was now the most consensus trade in the world for investors by their calculations.