Inflation level and equity mutual fund flows in aggregate

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship of inflation level and aggregate equity mutual fund flows using Thai evidence. Sample period covered from 2006 to 2020. For the first objective, we investigate the relationship between realized inflation and net flow of money into equity mutual fund. Next, since investors are forward-looking, we extend the analysis to investigate the same relationship using forecasted inflation instead. Lastly, money supply is increasing since 2008 because of the first launch of QE. Also, inflation trend becomes lower since then. Our further exploration is whether there is a change in the relationship between inflation and aggregate equity mutual fund flow between pre-post 2008 period.

We find a strongly negative relationship between equity flows and realized inflation. When inflation is high, economic stability will be worsened and nominal interest rate is going up. As a result, there are outflows from equity. However, the same relationship is not founded using inflation expectation. Net equity mutual fund flows tend to move with the realized inflation rather than the forecasted. Furthermore, our findings show that there is a significant amount of fund flows into equity mutual fund since 2008 onwards, but we cannot detect any significant change in the relationship between inflation and aggregate equity mutual fund flows.