April 24 (Reuters) - U.S. equity funds attracted the largest weekly net investment in four weeks through April 22, driven by upbeat corporate earnings results and optimism over AI-linked business deals.
Investors bought a net $27.98 billion of U.S. equity funds in their largest weekly purchase since roughly $36.94 billion net acquisitions in the week through March 25.
Upbeat earnings from major banks and food and beverage company PepsiCo boosted risk appetite. LSEG data for 134 S&P 500 companies showed
that first-quarter results for 82% of companies topped their mean analyst estimates.
Amazon on Monday said that it will invest up to $25 billion in Anthropic, bolstering demand for the technology sector funds.
Sectoral funds drew $7.1 billion, a third successive weekly inflow, with tech, industrial and financial sectors gaining $5.03 billion, $994 million and $991 million, respectively and leading the weekly net purchases.
Investors also pumped $1.47 billion in U.S. value funds and $4.92 billion - the biggest amount in five weeks - in growth funds.
Demand for bond funds revived after a $841 million of weekly net sales as these funds attracted approximately $3.4 billion of inflows in the week.
General domestic taxable fixed income funds, short-to-intermediate investment-grade funds and municipal debt funds saw net purchases of $1.91 billion, $1.28 billion and $1.02 billion, respectively, in the week.
Investors, meanwhile, ditched money market funds of a net $16.1 billion, after roughly $177.72 billion of net sales the prior week.
(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra, Editing by Louise Heavens)
