Global investors have poured in over $794 million in Asia-dedicated equity funds in the first week of April as India-focussed funds broke their 11-week outflow streak.
According to the data complied by international fund tracking firm EPFR Global, all the Asia - excluding Japan - equity funds enjoyed another solid week, driven by investors' faith in China's growth story.
"It was the best week of inflows for Asia ex-Japan equity funds since April 2008. More than half the $794-million of weekly inflows were received by China Equity Funds," the EPFR report stated.
India-focussed equity funds snapped an 11-week outflow streak, while at the country and sub-regional level both Brazil and China Equity Funds recorded inflows in excess of $400 million, it added.
Further, all emerging market equity funds tracked by EPFR took in $2.2 billion of inflows during the week, or 0.9 per cent of their total assets, and bringing inflows to date this year to $5.4 billion.
"This is the fifth week in a row we've seen this combination of positive net flows into funds dedicated to emerging markets equity and the riskiest kind of bonds," EPFR Global Managing Director Brad Durham said.
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"You have to think that all this liquidity being pumped in by central banks around the world is finally removing some of the shackles," Durham said.
Inflows into EPFR global-tracked sector funds during the first week of April continued to reflect some degree of faith that growth would begin to pick up during the second half of the year.
Technology Sector Funds absorbed fresh money for a fifth straight week, their best rally since early third quarter of 2008, while Commodity Sector Funds posted inflows for the 13th time in the 14th week year-to-date, despite turning in the worst performance numbers among the nine major sector fund groups.
The best performers included Real Estate Sector Funds, which posted a collective 6.2 per cent gain as they took in a net $329 million. Healthcare and Biotechnology Sector Funds were the only one of the nine fund groups to post outflows this week as uncertainty about the shape of possible reforms to the US healthcare sector continued to sap investor confidence.
The diversified Global Emerging Markets (GEM) Equity Funds extended their winning run to three weeks, but EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) Equity Funds again recorded outflows despite posting the best performance numbers of any major emerging markets fund group.