

FILE PHOTO: The Wall Street sign is pictured at the New York Stock exchange (NYSE) in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., March 9, 2020. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri FILE PHOTO: The Wall Street sign is pictured at the New York Stock exchange (NYSE) in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., March 9, 2020. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

April 16, 2020

By David Randall and Alden Bentley

(Reuters) – Investors sent record inflows to high-yield corporate bonds and broke a six-week losing streak for investment-grade debt in the week that ended Wednesday as market volatility from the coronavirus crisis began to subside, according to Lipper data released Thursday.

U.S. high-yield taxable corporate bond funds drew a record $7.66 billion in the week, while U.S. taxable bond funds took in $10.3 billion.

The broad push back into financial markets was accompanied by slightly more than $8.8 billion in inflows into mutual and exchange-traded funds that hold U.S. stocks, extending a streak of inflows that began the week of April 1.

The moves came as the benchmark S&P 500 stock index continued to rally on the back of extraordinary intervention into the bond market by the Federal Reserve, a $2.3 stimulus plan passed by Congress, and signs that the rate of coronavirus infection in hot spots such as New York may be slowing.

The index is now up more than 25% from its March lows, down approximately 14% in the year to date.

Money market funds, a proxy for investors seeking safe-haven assets, took in their lowest weekly amount of inflows since March 3. The $46.8 billion in inflows last week was a fifth of the nearly $260 billion in inflows into the category during the week of March 25.

(Reporting by Alden Bentley and David Randall; Editing by Bernadette Baum)