BofA Securities Equity Client Flow Trends: Big selling week for retail

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BofA Securities Equity Client Flow Trends: Big selling week for retail

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BofA Securities Equity Client Flow Trends

Big selling week for retail

2nd week of outflows, driven by retail clients 26 May 2026

• Stock selling eclipsed ETF buying: Last week (S&P 500 +0.9%), clients were Equity and Quant Strategy

slight net sellers of US equities as a 2nd week of single stock outflows ($1.9bn) United States

offset a 9th straight week of equity ETFs inflows ($1.6bn).

• Selling was driven by retail clients (biggest outflows since Dec). Hedge fund

clients resumed buying after selling the prior week and institutional clients bought

equities for the 4th week. All size segments except mid caps saw outflows. Clients

sold single stocks across all size segments (but were net buyers of mid cap equities

when combining stock & ETF flows).

Jill Carey Hall, CFA

• Corp. client buybacks picked up to their highest weekly level since Jan., but as % Equity & Quant Strategist

of market cap continue to track below avg. (as has been the case most weeks YTD). BofAS

+1 646 855 3327

Trailing 52-wk. buybacks/mkt. cap continue to decline (currently lowest since late jill.carey@bofa.com

’23). Buybacks have slowed most notably in Tech vs. picked up in Disc./Fins./Energy Trey Brown

YTD. Equity & Quant Strategist BofAS

More TMT outflows +1harold.brown2@bofa.com646 855 2689

• Clients sold stocks in 8 of 11 sectors, led by Tech (2nd week of large outflows;

Comm. Services stocks were also sold for the 2nd week). Discretionary and Materials

Exhibit 1: Institutional clients are the stocks saw the next largest outflows after Tech.

biggest net sellers post-crisis

• Only Real Estate, Health Care & Utilities saw inflows. Real Estate has the Cumulative flows ($ bn) by client type, February