CHICAGO, Feb. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, today reported estimated U.S. mutual fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) fund flows for January 2019. For the first time in five years, active U.S. equity funds outshone their passive counterparts, with active U.S. equity funds balancing for the month while passive U.S. equity funds had $3.8 billion in outflows. Morningstar estimates net flow for mutual funds by computing the change in assets not explained by the performance of the fund, and net flow for U.S. ETFs shares outstanding and reported net assets.

Morningstar's report about U.S. fund flows for January is available here. Highlights from the report include:

• Overall, long-term flows in January bounced back with $39.0 billion in inflows after $83.0 billion of outflows in December, yet they trailed the past two January's hauls by wide margins, which were $132.0 billion in 2018 and $63.0 billion in 2017.
• Within Morningstar Category groups, taxable bond funds saw $31.5 billion in inflows this month, the group's best performance since January 2018. In contrast to equity funds, passive taxable-bond funds received a record $27.6 billion. Meanwhile, ultrashort bond funds saw their weakest month since September 2017, with the group collecting just $2.3 billion.
• Diversified emerging-markets funds led Morningstar Categories in January with $10.9 billion in inflows, the category's best month since January 2018. International equity funds bounced back this month with $14.2 billion of inflows after a reciprocal amount of outflows in December, most likely due in part to tax-loss selling.
• Among the top-10 largest U.S. fund families, Vanguard dominated with $19.7 billion in inflows. Specifically, Vanguard Total Bond Market II Index, which boasts a Morningstar Analyst Rating™ of Silver, saw $6.9 billion inflows this month, January's greatest inflows for a vehicle. The mild surprise from U.S. fund families in January was the weak performance of iShares, which collected just $400 million, the firm's worst showing since June 2018.

To view the complete report, please click here.

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About Morningstar, Inc.
Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The company offers an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers, retirement plan providers and sponsors, and institutional investors in the private capital markets. Morningstar provides data and research insights on a wide range of investment offerings, including managed investment products, publicly listed companies, private capital markets, and real-time global market data. Morningstar also offers investment management services through its investment advisory subsidiaries, with more than $207 billion in assets under advisement and management as of Sept. 30, 2018. The company has operations in 27 countries. For more information, visit www.morningstar.com/company. Follow Morningstar on Twitter @MorningstarInc.

Morningstar's Manager Research Group consists of various wholly owned subsidiaries of Morningstar, Inc. including, but not limited to, Morningstar Research Services LLC. Analyst Ratings are subjective in nature and should not be used as the sole basis for investment decisions. Analyst Ratings are based on Morningstar's Manager Research Group's current expectations about future events and therefore involve unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause such expectations not to occur or to differ significantly from what was expected. Analyst Ratings are not guarantees nor should they be viewed as an assessment of a fund's or a fund's or separately managed account's underlying securities' creditworthiness. This press release is for informational purposes only; references to securities or a separately managed account investment strategy in this press release should not be considered an offer or solicitation to buy or sell the securities or to invest in accordance with that strategy.

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SOURCE Morningstar, Inc.