Jan 2 (Reuters) – Global equity funds saw strong inflows in the final week of 2025 as optimism about artificial intelligence-driven market growth over the past year and solid corporate earnings prospects boosted risk appetite.
Global equity funds attracted $26.54 billion in net inflows this week, following net buying of about $37.05 billion the previous week, according to LSEG Lipper data.
The MSCI World Index is up 20.6% in 2025, its strongest annual performance since a 24.05% gain in 2019.
Analysts expect corporate earnings to grow 12.11% in 2026, in line with a 2025 growth forecast of 12.32%, according to London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) data covering 11,811 large and medium-sized companies.
Including purchases in the latest week, global equity funds recorded net inflows of approximately $239.76 billion over the past year, compared with approximately $453.58 billion in 2024.
In the latest week, investors increased their holdings of U.S. stock funds by $16.89 billion, marking the second consecutive week of net buying. European and Asian equity funds also saw weekly inflows of $5.75 billion and $2.67 billion respectively.
Industry stock funds saw net inflows of US$1.73 billion per week, with net inflows of US$574 million, US$413 million and US$337 million in the financial, real estate and industrial sectors respectively. Healthcare is still seeing a net outflow of $510 million per week.
Meanwhile, global bond funds saw net outflows of $1.97 billion, the first weekly sales since April 16. Despite the setback, bond funds attracted $891.74 billion in net inflows in 2025, after net inflows of $1.05 trillion in 2024.
Short-term bond funds withdrew about $5.23 billion after net buying of $10.16 billion last week. However, weekly inflows into Eurobond funds, corporate bond funds and government bond funds were $1.14 billion, $1.13 billion and $765 million respectively.
Investors also put $79.4 billion into safe money market funds, ending a three-week selloff in these funds.
Gold and precious metals commodity funds enjoyed popularity for the eighth consecutive week, with weekly net inflows of approximately $2.03 billion.
In emerging markets, bond funds saw net outflows of $1.1 billion as investors ended a five-week buying trend. However, data from a total of 28,544 funds showed that they snapped up $242 million worth of equity funds.
(Reporting by Gaurav ‌Dogra in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
