The industry broke an 18-week inflows streak last week, thanks largely to a doubling in outflows from traditional mutual funds and despite a rise in ETF inflows, according to the latest data from the folks at a mutual fund industry trade group.

Today, the Investment Company Institute (ICI) team reports that an estimated $9.101 billion net flowed out of ETFs and long-term, open-end mutual funds in the week ended December 17, 2025. (Money-market funds and funds-of-funds, as well as non-'40-Act asset management products like collectiveu trusts and separate accounts, are not included.) That's a $22.955-billion net flows drop week-over-week from the week ended on December 10*.

Traditional, long-term, open-end mutual funds suffered an estimated $60.732 billion in net outflows for the week ended December 17, according to the ICI folks, up by $30.201 billion W/W. Meanwhile, ETFs brought in an estimated $51.631 billion in net inflows, up by $7.247 billion W/W.

Fixed income led industry inflows yet again last week. Per ICI's data, an estimated $6.922 billion net flowed into bond funds and ETFs in the week ended December 17 (down by $3.062 billion W/W). $5.594 billion of that (down by $3.012 billion W/W) flowed into taxable bond funds and ETFs, while $1.328 billion (down by $51 million W/W) flowed into municipal bond funds and muni ETFs.

The only other flows bright spot category-wise was commodity funds (well, ETFs), which brought in an estimated $2.852 billion in net inflows in the week ended December 17. That's up by $1.313 billion W/W.

On the flip side, equity funds and ETFs suffered an estimated $14.752 billion in net outflows for the week ended December 17 (an $18.768-billion net flows drop W/W). Domestic equity funds and ETFs suffered $14.422 billion in net outflows (a $15.78-billion net flows drop W/W), while world equity funds and ETFs suffered an estimated $330 million in net outflows (a $2.987-billion net flows drop W/W).

Hybrid funds and ETFs suffered an estimated $4.123 billion in net outflows last week. That's up by $2.438 billion W/W.

*Editor's Note: The ICI folks note that they also regularly revise the past weeks' flows data, "because of adjustments, reclassifications, and changes in the number of funds reporting." Thus, the week-to-week flows changes may not quite line up perfectly with the numbers in MFWire's coverage of prior weeks' flows. 

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