May 15 (Reuters) - Global equity funds attracted inflows for an eighth straight week through May 13 as investors chased the AI-driven rally in technology stocks on optimism over strong chipmaker earnings and shrugged off inflation concerns.
They bought a net $39.15 billion of global equity funds in their largest weekly net purchase since $48.55 billion of additions in the week to April 22, LSEG Lipper data showed.
The MSCI World Index hit a record 1,117.52 on Thursday, as tech shares extended a rally
after Advanced Micro Devices and Microchip Technology had forecasted strong data-center chips' demand in the last week.
LSEG data covering 900 MSCI World constituents showed that about 72% of companies beat analysts' average profit estimates for the first quarter.
U.S. equity funds gained $22.37 billion weekly inflows in a reversal from $2.89 billion net outflows the prior week. Asian and European funds also saw weekly net additions of $7.62 billion and $6.29 billion, respectively.
The technology sector drew a record $10.65 billion. Metals and mining, and industrial sectors also had net purchases of $1.03 billion and $886 million, respectively.
Global bond funds attracted $25.76 billion, the largest amount for a week since early October 2025.
Short-term bond funds, euro-denominated bond funds and corporate bond funds led the purchases with net inflows of $2.93 billion, $2.83 billion and $2.47 billion, respectively.
Money market funds, meanwhile, witnessed a net $9.2 billion of withdrawals after net purchases of $149.98 billion in the prior week.
Gold and other precious metal funds saw a revival in demand following two weeks of net sales as investors poured $1.77 billion into these funds.
In emerging markets, equity funds remained out of favor for a third straight week with a net $3.18 billion outflow. Bond funds, however, saw a sixth weekly inflow of $2.19 billion, data covering 28,893 funds showed.
(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra, Editing by Nick Zieminski)
