This week appears to have been the biggest week ever for municipal bond ETFs, at least when it comes to inflows. That's one finding in the latest data from LSEG's Refinitiv Lipper team.

Tom Roseen Refinitiv Lipper Head of Research Services

In the U.S. Weekly FundFlows Insight report for the week ending November 16, 2022 (i.e. Wednesday), Tom Roseen, head of research services at Refinitiv Lipper, reveals that $1.8 billion net flowed into muni bond ETFs this week. That's the category's fourth week of inflows in a row, up from $209 million last week. It's also the largest weekly muni bond ETF inflows on record since September 12, 2007, when the Lipper team started tracking weekly flows for the category.

This week's biggest muni bond ETF winner was SSGA's SPDR Nuveen Bloomberg Municipal Bond ETF (TFI), with $57 million in net inflows.

Overall, $14.1 billion net flowed into mutual funds and ETFs in the U.S. week. It was the industry's third week of inflows in four weeks, up from $23.3 billion in net outflows last week. Long-term (i.e. non-money market) funds and ETFs brought in $17.3 billion in net inflows this week, up from $11.8 billion in net outflows last week.

Equity funds led the way with $14.6 billion in net inflows this week, up from $8.5 billion in net outflows last week. Taxable fixed income funds brought in $2.1 billion in net inflows this week (up from $838 million in net outflows), and tax-exempt fixed income funds brought in $605 million in net inflows (up from $2.5 billion in net outflows). Money market funds, meanwhile, suffered $3.2 billion in net outflows this week (down from $11.5 billion).

Equity ETFs brought in $21.7 billion in net inflows this week. It was their seventh week of inflows in a row, up from $240 million last week.

Domestic equity ETFs brought in $18.5 billion in net inflows this week (their sixth week of inflows in seven weeks, up from $2.6 billion in net outflows last week). And nondomestic equity ETFs brought in $3.2 billion in net inflows (their eighth week of inflows in a row, up from $2.8 billion).

This week's biggest equity ETF winner was SSGA's S&P 500 ETF (SPY), with $7.1 billion in net inflows.

Conventional (i.e. non-ETF) equity funds suffered $7.1 billion in net outflows this week. It was their 41st week of outflows in a row, down from $8.8 billion last week.

Conventional domestic equity funds suffered $3.9 billion in net outflows this week (also their 41st week of outflows in a row, down from $5.8 billion last week). And conventional nondomestic equity funds suffered $3.1 billion in net outflows this week (their 32nd week of outflows in a row, up from $3 billion).

Taxable fixed income ETFs brought in $7.2 billion in net inflows this week. It was their second week of inflows in a row, up from $3.7 billion last week.

This week's biggest taxable fixed income ETF winner, for the second week in a row, was BlackRock's iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate ETF (HYG), with $1.4 billion in net inflows (up from $1.3 billion last week).

Conventional taxable fixed income funds suffered $5.1 billion in net outflows this week. It was their 13th week of outflows in a row, up from $4.5 billion last week.

Conventional muni bond funds suffered $1.2 billion in net outflows this week. It was their 13th week of outflows in a row, down from $2.7 billion last week. And Roseen notes that conventional muni bond funds have now suffered $132.6 billion in net outflows so far in 2022, more than in any full year on record since the Lipper folks started calculating weekly flows data back in 1992. 

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