Morningstar Reports U.S. Mutual Fund and ETF Asset Flows Through May 2011

Morningstar, Inc. MORN today reported estimated U.S. mutual fund and exchange-traded fund asset flows through May 2011. Estimated long-term mutual fund flows reached $22.6 billion in May, but this was still the fourth consecutive monthly decline since inflows of $29.8 billion in January. After inflows of $23.3 billion in April, U.S. ETFs lost about $3.1 billion to outflows in May. Additional highlights from Morningstar's report on mutual fund flows: * U.S. stock funds recorded their first significant outflows of the year, as the asset class lost $4.5 billion in May. * Although inflows have slowed, international-stock funds collected assets of about $1.5 billion during the month. Diversified emerging-markets equity funds accounted for the majority of these inflows. * For the fifth consecutive month, inflows increased for taxable-bond funds. Investors added $20.8 billion in new money to the asset class in May, but with a slightly diminished taste for credit risk. Flows into municipal-bond funds were flat after six consecutive months of outflows. * Following a steep drop in silver and other commodity prices, commodities funds fell more than five percent on average and experienced outflows of more than $500 million in May.