Thursday, September 02, 2010

Reply From Kokanart: Who Are Pulling Out?

From the posting: 58 Billion Reason Why Americans Thinks Their Stock Market Sucks!


  • kokanart said...
    If Americans sold their shares ie net-sell to get out of the market, then who are the net-buyers?

    Logically speaking, for every seller there is, of course, a buyer.Are you referring to retail ie members of the public ( not the big insiders ) who are pulling out?
I believe my posting probably confused you.

My posting highlights that currently Americans have been pulling out a lot of money from their long term equity funds, funds designed to trade/invest only in their equity markets.

In the posting Americans Pulled USD 53.279 Billion Out Of The Equity Markets, I highlighted one NY Times article dated 21st Aug 2010. (That article probably explains better) That article reflected what I had been writing on postings like Main Street Telling Wall Street That The Equity Markets Stinks! and Stocks Rally And US Equity Investors Rallied To Get Out Of the Equity Markets.

From the NY Times article.
  • ..... Investors withdrew a staggering $33.12 billion from domestic stock market mutual funds in the first seven months of this year, according to the Investment Company Institute, the mutual fund industry trade group....... ( I did not include that sentence because I did not agree what it was saying - see below for my explanation)

    Small investors are “losing their appetite for risk,” a Credit Suisse analyst, Doug Cliggott, said in a report to investors on Friday.

    One of the phenomena of the last several decades has been the rise of the individual investor. As Americans have become more responsible for their own retirement, they have poured money into stocks with such faith that half of the country’s households now own shares directly or through mutual funds, which are by far the most popular way Americans invest in stocks. So the turnabout is striking.... (source again: In Striking Shift, Small Investors Flee Stock Market )

The NY Times although highlighting the issue, it made the report based on YTD basis.

  • "Investors withdrew a staggering $33.12 billion from domestic stock market mutual funds in the first seven months of this year"

I could be wrong but I thought that actually is the nicer version and more so I wanted to focus on the current trend because I find it incredible to watch that each week, Americans kept pulling out from these funds. Anyway, that NY Times article was published on 21st Aug 2010, which means the article was probably using ICI ( Investment Company Institute ) data as at 19th Aug 2010.

And I actually made a posting on the 19th Aug. Yeah, compare that to what I wrote on 19th Aug 2010 in the posting: Stocks Rally And US Equity Investors Rallied To Get Out Of the Equity Markets.

I had noted that was the 15th consecutive week that American pulled money out of their equity funds. The total I was looking at? 50 Billion already! Americans are taking money out of equity funds which invests/trades in the stock markets.

And today's data, based on the current trend, from 28 April 2010 to 25th Aug 2010, or 17 consecutive weeks, Americans have withdrawn some 58 Billion from the equity mutual funds.

Is that dramatic? Is that an issue worth to consider?

Or is this a non issue?

2 comments:

Gamelion said...

The main sucker of this crazy buying must be the Plunge Protection Team which r lead by the chief of Federal Reserve thinking his magic printing
machine can solve any economic trouble just because they r super economic power & invincible forever.
An empire reaching its height of glory often plants within itself the very seeds of its decline. Nothing remains constant; in the ebb & flow of life what was once strong is now weak & what was weak is now strong.

kokanart said...

Moola,
"In a striking shift, small investors flee stock market" for the bond market.
So small investors are underweight in the stock market. And the US stock markets have declined during this period of selling - as you show in the indices graphs. Therefore the small investors' decision to underweight have proved to be correct - in your opinion?
This is surprising since small investors are not considered to be savvy investors, who sell at the top and buy at the bottom. We are told to do the opposite of what the small investor does, since they are usually not the smart money.
Well, have times and people changed?