By Senad Karaahmetovic
Bank of America clients continued to buy U.S. stocks despite the ongoing banking crisis. Investors moved about $3 billion into the U.S. equities last week, during which the S&P 500 rose 1.4%, according to BofA's data summarized by its strategists.
BofA's clients were buying both single stocks and ETFs with hedge funds the biggest buyers, while institutional and retail clients were sellers for the first time in a week and three weeks, respectively.
Arguably, the biggest highlight of the week was that Energy witnessed the biggest inflows since 2008.
"Clients were broad-based buyers of stocks in all sectors except Discretionary (second week of outflows) and Real Estate (sixth week of outflows)... Financials saw small inflows for the third straight week. Retail and hedge fund clients were buyers of Financials while institutional clients sold the sector," the strategists added.
Elsewhere, Tech inflows continued while Materials still have the longest buying streak. Still, Materials "remains underweight by long-only fund managers despite this group increasing exposure in recent months," they added.
"Corp. buybacks accelerated but remained below typical season trends for the seventh straight week. Due to a strong Jan., corp. client buybacks YTD as a % of S&P 500 mkt. cap (0.056%) are tracking just above ‘22 highs at this time (0.055%)," the strategists concluded.