BofA strategist Jill Carey Hall reflected on last week’s customer flows when the 2.1% plunge.

Overall, BofA clients were small net buyers of US stocks ($0.1 billion) for the first time in four weeks, with clients buying individual stocks and selling ETFs for the third straight week.

“Institutional clients were net buyers for the first time in three weeks, while hedge funds and private clients were net sellers for the seventh and second consecutive weeks, respectively (and only the third time since the start of the ‘year retail customers were sellers),’ Carey Hall said in a client note.

Clients were buying and selling small/mid caps, according to Carey Hall. Looking at sectors, Materials and Industrials stocks saw the biggest inflows last week to extend their year-to-date gains. On the other hand, customers were selling energy and financial services.

“After extreme outflows from consumer discretionary stocks over the past four weeks (and the largest cumulative net selloffs of any sector since the start of the year), clients bought into the sector last week. These extreme outflows generally suggested that performance could be close to bottoming.

As far as buyouts go, client business activity has accelerated over the past 2 weeks.

By Senad Karaahmetovic