Bond Mutual Funds See Biggest Outflows Since 2022 as ETFs Gain

In April’s tariff-driven market turbulence, investors yanked roughly $60 billion from fixed-income mutual funds, while bond ETFs overall weathered the storm.

A modest $10 billion of cash was injected into the exchange traded funds even as Wall Street slashed its exposure to risky corporate debt during a spike in recession angst. Money managers navigating the cross-asset volatility were drawn to their easy liquidity and lower costs of ETFs. The wrapper has benefited from fixed income flows for nearly every single month now over the past three years.