January Fund Purchases Off: Investors bought a...

January Fund Purchases Off: Investors bought a net $4.6 billion of stock and bond mutual funds in January, down from $6 billion in December, the Investment Company Institute reported. But February will more than make up for January’s dip, because investors have flocked back to stock funds with the market’s surge, fund companies report. Vanguard Group in Valley Forge, Pa., for example, reports its net cash inflow has totaled $1 billion so far in February, and the flow into stock funds is the highest since May, 1989. For the mutual fund industry as a whole, total assets reached a record $1.13 trillion in January, up from $1.07 trillion in December, as cash surged into money-market funds.