Fund investors continued to pull money from equity funds in October, even as the overall stock market recovered. All told, shareholders pulled $7.48 from equity funds in October. The outflow was roughly half of the $16.1 billion liquidated in September, reported the Investment Company Institute today.

Even with the outflows, though, total assets in all mutual funds rose by $174.1 billion to $6.23 trillion during the month. The gain was primarily driven by rising stock prices.

On the bright side, new sales of equity fund shares rose to $74.9 billion in October from a revised $53.9 billion in September. The higher sales were offset by an increase in redemptions to $77.5 billion from a revised $63.2 billion September.

So far in 2002 net cash flow to equity funds has been $13.97 billion, up from a net outflow of $26.53 billion at the same point in 2001.  

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