Investors pull out $2.1 bn from BRIC funds

Stock market volatility forced investors across the world to pull out five billion dollars from emerging market equity funds last week, including over two billion dollars from funds focused on four BRIC Markets.

China accounted for more than half of the total outflow from BRIC funds, while India, Russia and Brazil together shared the remainder, according to international fund tracking firm EPFR Global.

"With sub-prime and global credit fears being fuelled by almost daily news of fresh write-downs in the financial sector and evidence mounting that the US Economy will slow going into next year, investors retreated from equity funds during the second week of November and shifted to the relative safety of money market funds," EPFR said in its weekly report.

During the second week of November, emerging market equity funds reported a net outflow of 5.58 billion dollars, while those focused on developed Markets saw an outflow of 5.07 billion dollars.

Nearly all the outflow from the developed and emerging Markets appears to have been absorbed by the money market funds. According to EPFR, the money market funds recorded a net inflow of 10.1 billion dollars during the week, taking their total inflow since the beginning of August to 100 billion dollars.

"Money market funds currently offer two things that investors like. They are very liquid, which allows investors to move rapidly back into Markets where they see value, and most of them come with an implicit guarantee that you wont lose any money something that's very attractive in the current investment climate," EPFR Global Analyst Cameron Brandt said.