By Senad Karaahmetovic
Bank of America strategist Jill Carey Hall reflected on last week’s stock market performance after the S&P gained 6.4%.
Still, the bank’s clients were net sellers of US equities with $0.4 in outflows for the last week. Clients were selling single stocks but bought ETFs with all three client groups recorded as net sellers.
As far as sectors are concerned, clients were selling stocks in 9 of the 11 sectors last week with Tech and Health Care leading the way.
“Only defensive bond-proxy sectors saw inflows – Staples and Utilities. This was the first time in eight weeks where defensive sector flows were more positive (or less negative) than cyclical sector flows. Despite outflows from Consumer Discretionary stocks last week, less-volatile four-week average flows for the sector have remained positive following capitulation-like outflows in March/April – the longest buying streak of any sector besides Materials, suggesting investors may believe the worst is already priced in,” Carey Hall told clients in a note.
Buybacks slowed last week when compared to the previous week. Looking at the bigger picture (buybacks as a percentage of the S&P 500 market cap), YTD buybacks are slightly ahead of last year’s levels but below 2019.