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US Fund Flows: September Investor Sentiment Trends
Investors double down on bonds, pull back from growth equities, and eye gold as volatility looms.
Key Takeaways
Long-term mutual funds and exchange-traded funds gathered more than $85 billion in September 2025, the largest inflow since December 2024.
Investors continued to dig gold in September, with commodities-focused funds taking in nearly $10 billion.
Investors fled levered funds, both equity- and debt-focused, at the largest clip on record.
US investors kept leaning away from risk in August 2025 as they put $77 billion to work in mainly fixed-income open-end funds and ETFs. Taxable-bond funds led, with their largest inflows since April 2021, concentrated in defensive areas. Investors also continued to move into cash. Meanwhile, equity investors bolted from growth funds and emerging-markets funds, despite continued rotation into international funds.
The charts below illustrate which direction the money is flowing for a variety of fund types. For a more complete analysis, download the full monthly report.
This data was sourced from Morningstar Direct. Not a user? Get a free trial of Direct.
Source: Morningstar Direct Asset Flows. Data as of Sept. 30, 2025.
Navigating Market Volatility Through Fund Flows Data
Are Hard Currency Bonds Back?
After months of outsized inflows that favored non-US dollar-denominated debt categories, the tides turned in September. Global bond-USD hedged funds brought in $5.2 billion, their largest monthly inflow since April 2021, while emerging-markets bond (hard currency) funds had their largest monthly inflow since January 2023 at $2.1 billion. Mostly driven by September, the combined third-quarter inflow for these categories was the largest since mid-2021.
The US dollar has depreciated consistently year to date through September, and investors may be feeling less bearish on the US dollar at these levels.
Source: Morningstar Direct Asset Flows. Data as of Sept. 30, 2025.
Technology and Industrial Funds Dominate Sector Equity Flows
Technology and industrials have become the 800-pound gorillas in sector equity fund flows. Tech’s $5.4 billion September inflow was second only to February 2021, while industrials’ $3.7 billion haul was second only to November 2016. Together, the two sectors claimed more than 70% of the $12.4 billion of net inflows in September, but their dominance becomes more apparent over a longer period.
Since January 2024, tech sector funds have raked in a net $36 billion and industrials another $16 billion, while the rest of the category has bled nearly $60 billion.
Source: Morningstar Direct Asset Flows. Data as of Sept. 30, 2025.
Gold Records in Sight
Gold continued to prove its mettle in September. With prices continuing to soar, investors put $9.9 billion into commodities-focused funds, a roughly 50% increase from August and the largest monthly inflow since April 2020 (albeit far lower on an organic growth basis). These funds, which invest mostly in precious metals (primarily gold), have gathered more than $38 billion in 2025. That’s the second most in the past 15 years and, at this rate, would overtake 2020’s $44 billion record by year-end.
Source: Morningstar Direct Asset Flows. Data as of Sept. 30, 2025.
Long-Term Fund Flow Trends
Passively managed funds continue to attract inflows while their actively managed counterparts shed assets under management with another month of outflows. Passive funds now hold more than half of US long-term fund total assets, and their share has continued to grow.
Meanwhile, exchange-traded funds have also continued to grow their share of long-term assets under management. At the end of September, open-end funds held $22 trillion and ETFs held $12.6 trillion.
Source: Morningstar Direct Asset Flows. Data as of Sept. 30, 2025.
More on Fund Flows from Morningstar
For more comprehensive analysis and commentary on US Fund Flows, download this month’s full report.
- Flows for the largest fund families
- Morningstar categories with the lowest and highest fund flows
- Government bond fund and money market flows
Morningstar’s asset fund flows data dates to 2008 with forecasting models for future growth rates. The Morningstar Direct application includes all fund flows data along with its performance reporting, presentation, and search capabilities. The Direct team also supports new users with onboarding, training materials, and 24-hour customer service.
Start a free trial of Morningstar Direct and evaluate fund flow data your way.
Note: The figures in this report were compiled on Sept. 30, 2025, and reflect only the funds that had reported net assets by that date. The figures in both the commentary and the extended tables are survivorship-bias-free. This report includes both mutual funds and exchange-traded funds but not funds of funds unless specifically stated. It does not include collective investment trusts or separate accounts. Important methodology note: Morningstar computes flows using the standard approach in the industry: Net flow is the estimated change in assets not explained by the performance of the fund. Our method assumes that flows occur uniformly over the course of the month. Adjustments for mergers are performed automatically. When liquidated funds are included, the fund's final assets are counted as outflows. Reinvested dividends are not counted as inflows. We use fund-level reinvestment rates to improve accuracy in this respect. We make ad hoc adjustments for unusual corporate actions such as reverse share splits, and we overwrite our estimates with actual flows if managers are willing to provide the data to us. When possible, Morningstar offsets outflows caused by transfers to other investment vehicles that share an identical mandate since they are not indicative of a change in investor interest.