Global equity funds see a weekly selloff on tariff woes, economic uncertainties

Investors pulled heavily out of global equity funds during the week through March 19 on lingering worries over the potential impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's aggressive trade policies on global economy.

They offloaded a net $29.7 billion worth of global equity funds during the week, the most for a week since December 18, data from LSEG Lipper showed.

U.S. equity funds faced the largest weekly selloff in three months to the tune of $33.53 billion.

Also, investors divested a net $1.11 billion worth of European funds but it was still less than the $5.35 billion net sales in the previous week, which underscored some optimism as the German parliament approved a debt reform package to boost Europe's biggest economy.

On the other hand, investors accumulated about $3.5 billion worth of Asian funds for a 14th straight week of net buying.

Outflows from sectoral equity funds, however, cooled to a three-week low of $178.7 million as industrials, and gold and precious metals funds drew $1.02 billion and $485 million, respectively, in inflows, despite the net selling in a majority of sectors.

Demand for debt funds, meanwhile, eased to a 11-week low during the week, with investors allocating just $357.92 million to global bond funds.

Global government bond funds, loan participation funds and corporate bond funds witnessed a net $2.03 billion, $1.56 billion and $1.34 billion worth of net sales. Short-term bond funds, however, bucked the trend with a net $4.47 billion in weekly inflows.

Money market funds saw a pull out worth about $14.1 billion during the week, a second successive week of withdrawal.

Investors, meanwhile, racked up a net $2.71 billion worth of gold and precious metal funds, extending net purchases into a sixth consecutive week. Energy funds saw a marginal $25.9 million worth of net sales.

According to data encompassing 29,618 emerging market funds, investors exited $930 million worth of bond funds, snapping a 10-weeks long buying string. They also ditched equity funds of a net $571 million.

(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)