CHICAGO, Aug. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, today reported estimated U.S. mutual fund and exchange-traded fund asset flows through July 2010. Overall flows into U.S. open-end mutual funds increased slightly in July to $14.1 billion. Almost universally, outflows increased for equity and balanced funds, and inflows rose for bond, alternative, and commodity funds. U.S. ETFs registered total net inflows of $6.8 billion in July, marking the sixth consecutive month of positive asset flows. Total ETF assets are up 6% since the start of the year and 29% over the trailing 12 months.

Additional highlights from Morningstar's report on mutual fund flows:

• Bond funds had another strong month of inflows, with investors adding $22.3 billion to taxable-bond funds and $3.9 billion to municipal-bond funds, approximately double the inflows municipal-bond funds saw in June.
• Nearly $12.4 billion exited domestic-equity funds in July, but international-stock funds saw less severe outflows of $565 million. Flows into emerging-markets equity funds offset redemptions from broader foreign-stock funds. Emerging-markets equity funds had roughly $161.4 billion in total assets as of the end of July, up nearly 41% over the trailing 12 months.
• Emerging-markets bond fund assets more than doubled to $30.8 billion over the last year after taking in more than $1.2 billion in July. A significant portion of these flows were allocated to local-currency emerging-markets bond funds, led by PIMCO Emerging Local Bond Fund with inflows of nearly $3.6 billion over the trailing 12 months.
• PIMCO and Vanguard led all fund families in terms of total inflows in July, taking in $5.9 billion and $4.9 billion, respectively. American Funds continued to see significant outflows with another $4.6 billion in redemptions in July.

Additional highlights from Morningstar's report on ETF flows:

• Inflows into emerging-markets ETFs helped make international-stock funds, which saw inflows of $4.6 billion, the most popular ETF asset class in July. Vanguard Emerging Markets Stock VWO was the top asset gatherer within the international-stock asset class as well as the overall U.S. ETF universe, with $2.3 billion in net inflows in July. Investors also expressed a renewed interest in single-country ETFs to gain precise international exposure while avoiding struggling Eastern European countries.
• Commodity ETFs saw net outflows in July for the first month since February. Although iShares COMEX Gold Trust IAU gathered assets of $209 million during the month, the asset class saw redemptions of $1.8 billion, led by SPDR Gold Shares GLD with $1.4 billion in outflows.
• Fixed-income ETFs remained popular in July, but investors favored the short end of the yield curve to the longer end. ETFs in the long government and long-term bond Morningstar categories saw combined total net inflows of $1.1 billion, while short government and short-term bond ETFs experienced outflows of $446 million.
• U.S. stock ETFs saw outflows of $91 million in July, as inflows into small-cap funds were not enough to offset outflows from large-cap funds. Investors added $2.3 billion to the iShares Russell 2000 Index IWM, bolstering ETFs in the small-blend category, whereas redemptions from SPDR S&P 500 SPY drove outflows from large-cap U.S. stock ETFs.

To view the complete report, please visit http://www.global.morningstar.com/julyflows10. For more information about Morningstar Fund Flows, please visit http://global.morningstar.com/fundflows.

About Morningstar, Inc.

Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offers an extensive line of Internet, software, and print-based products and services for individuals, financial advisors, and institutions. Morningstar provides data on approximately 360,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles, along with real-time global market data on more than 4 million equities, indexes, futures, options, commodities, and precious metals, in addition to foreign exchange and Treasury markets. The company has operations in 21 countries.

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SOURCE Morningstar, Inc.