The Buzz

All markets and investing news all the time

comments

Bad timing? Investors yanked $1.1 billion from stocks

By Catherine Tymkiw March 6, 2013: 1:05 PM ET

For the first time this year, investors took money off the table.

According to the latest data from the Investment Company Institute, investors pulled $1.13 billion from U.S. stock mutual funds during the week ended Feb. 27. That's the first time investors took money out of stocks this year, and it came just days before the Dow hit a record high.

But that doesn't mean the tide has turned. One week of outflows is not a trend. And after yanking more than $150 billion from U.S. stocks during each of the past three years, investors still have plenty of money sitting on the sidelines.

Stocks have continued to head higher thanks to a string of better-than-expected economic reports and stimulus moves by the Federal Reserve.

Add to that the fact that the U.S. economy did not fall off the fiscal cliff, and things are looking up. Even the forced budget cuts, aka the sequester, aren't getting investors down.

"As we get further and further away from the crisis, people get more confident," said Doug DePietro, managing director in institutional equities at Evercore Partners. "I wouldn't take too much from one week's data."

So far this year, investors have put roughly $20 billion into U.S. stocks. International stocks are also drawing strong interest. In the latest week, international stock funds attracted $2.18 billion, bringing the year-to-date tally to just over $34 billion.

"People still want to own the market," said DePietro.

Related: Dow at a record...sort of

But bonds, which are perceived as less risky than stocks, continue to attract solid interest as well. Bond funds took in nearly $5 billion last week, bringing the year's total to just over $50 billion. Hybrid funds, which invest in both stocks and bonds, brought in $2.4 billion last week.

JC Penney feeling the pain of its overhaul strategy

Click the chart to track shares of JC Penney.

JC Penney continues to struggle amid a massive overhaul effort.

Shares tumbled Friday, after the department store posted a $203 million loss for the third quarter.

JC Penney's (JCP) loss amounted to 93 cents a share for the quarter, more than thirteen times worse than what analysts were expecting. And sales at stores open at least a year declined more than 26% MORE
Hibah Yousuf - Nov 9, 2012 11:54 AM ET
Posted in: earnings, jc penney, profit, retail, shopping, stock
New York Times stock tumbles on weak ad sales

Click the chart to check the New York Times Company's stock.

The New York Times Company's stock plummeted Thursday, after the company reported a surprise third-quarter loss, driven by a 9% decline in advertising revenue.

Print ad revenue sank more than 10%, while digital ad sales fell 2% "largely due to the challenging economic environment," and a "complex and fragmented digital advertising marketplace," the company said, adding that it expects the MORE
Hibah Yousuf - Oct 25, 2012 4:45 PM ET
Posted in: ad sales, advertising, ceo, digital, earnings, loss, media, new york times, newspaper, print, profit, revenue, sales
Wells Fargo stock dips as revenue falls short

Click the chart to track shares of Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo posted a record profit of $4.9 billion for the third quarter as mortgage lending picked up, but weaker-than-expected revenue left investors disappointed.

The nation's largest mortgage lender said it originated $139 billion of mortgages during the third quarter, up 6% from a year earlier, as record low interest rates drove homeowners to refinance. But the low rates also weighed on MORE
Hibah Yousuf - Oct 12, 2012 5:40 PM ET
Posted in: banks, earnigns, earnings, housing, JPMorgan Chase, loans, mortgage rates, profit, revenue, stocks, Wells Fargo
Zillow stock tumbles on SEC disclosures

Click the chart to track Zillow's stock.

Zillow's stock fell sharply Tuesday following the disclosure of previous correspondence between the company and the Securities and Exchange Commission regarding questions about the company's sales.

Shares of Zillow (Z), the real estate website, dropped as much as 10.2% in early trading, the biggest one-day decline since November, before trimming some of the losses. By the afternoon, Zillow was down about 4%.

The stock first began MORE
Hibah Yousuf - Oct 2, 2012 1:51 PM ET
Posted in: 10k, accounting, profit, real estate, revenue, SEC, shares, stock, Zillow