FILE PHOTO: Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., July 29, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors jumped back into mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that hold U.S. stocks last week by sending approximately $11.8 billion in net assets into the category, the greatest weekly surge into domestic equities since early June, according to data released Wednesday by the Investment Company Institute.

The money flowing into stock funds came as the Federal Reserve cut interest rates last week as expected, helping further a rally that has pushed the benchmark S&P 500 stock index up 18.5% since the beginning of the year.

Over the last two weeks, investors have sent nearly $20 billion into U.S. stock funds.

Despite those gains, U.S. equity funds have lost a total of nearly $84 billion for the year to date. Instead, investors have continued to seek the safety of bond funds, which garnered an additional $9.3 billion in new assets last week. For the year to date, bond funds have pulled in a net of nearly $306 billion in new assets.

World stock funds, meanwhile, lost nearly $1.8 billion in outflows, continuing a streak in which investors have pulled nearly $41 billion from the category since the start of the year.