By Senad Karaahmetovic
Investors were buying US equities for the second consecutive week, according to Bank of America strategist Jill Carey Hall.
The S&P 500 gained +1.9% last week with the largest inflows recorded since late April.
“Clients bought both single stocks and ETFs (led by single stocks), with inflows across all size segments. All major client groups were net buyers, led by institutional clients (who along with private clients have been net buyers the last two weeks); hedge funds were net buyers for the first time in eight weeks,” Carey Hall said in a client note.
Interestingly, clients were buying stocks across all sectors, with the exception of Industrials. Tech, Communication Services, and Consumer Discretionary attracted the biggest inflows.
“Net buys of Communication Services stocks were the largest since Dec. 2020. Clients are not positioning for a recession/slowdown: consistent with 1H trends, clients were bigger net buyers of stocks in cyclical sectors than defensive sectors,” Carey Hall added.
As far as buybacks are concerned, activity picked up last week versus the prior week with the overall trends slightly above last year’s levels.