Stock Fund Inflow Slowed During May Market Extended Fall Early estimates for June see $19.7 billion outflow; bonds taking up slack.(A)

Byline: DAN MOREAU

Investors slowed purchases of stock funds in May, and apparently turned net sellers in June as the market's slump deepened.

Investors likely pulled $19.7 billion in June as stocks crumbled, TrimTabs.com estimated. The June damage is evident in the indexes. The S&P 500 and Dow industrials fell 7% in June. The Nasdaq composite was off 9%.

The Investment Company Institute reported that cash flow to stock funds in May fell sharply to $4.83 billion from nearly $13 billion in April.

U.S. stock funds were hit hardest. Cash flow to them was just $2.85 billion in May. In April, investors poured into U.S. stock funds $12.26 billion of the total $12.93 billion flow into worldwide stock funds.

For the year through May, stock funds had inflow of $72 billion vs. $38.5 billion for the first five months of 2001.

Bond funds took in $10.6 billion in May, up from $7.76 billion in April. Taxable bond fund inflow for the first five months totaled $40.5 billion vs. $29.1 billion for the same period in 2001.