BofA strategist Jill Carey Hall has reflected on last week’s client flows when the fell 2.1%.

BofA clients were the net buyers of US Equities (0.1 billion), for the first time after four weeks. BofA clients bought single stocks, and then sold them ETFs the following week.

“Institutional clients were net buyers for the first time in three weeks, while both hedge funds and private clients were net sellers for the seventh and second straight weeks, respectively (and only the third time YTD that retail clients were sellers),” Carey Hall said in a client note.

Carey Hall said that clients were selling and buying small/mid cap stocks. According to Carey Hall, the most significant inflows were seen last week for Industrials and Materials stocks. This helped increase their YTD gains. Clients were also selling Energy and Financials.

“Following extreme outflows from Consumer Discretionary stocks over the last four weeks (and the biggest cumulative net sales of any sector YTD), clients bought the sector last week. Such extreme outflows have typically suggested performance could be close to bottoming.”

In terms of buybacks, activity by corporate clients has increased in the past 2 weeks.

By Senad Karaahmetovic