The latest news for the PIMCO Total Return Fund (PTTRX) isn't great. But the troubled fund family — which continues to experience significant outflows — "is not ready to be written off just yet," according to senior analyst Alina Lamy of Morningstar, in a report issued Tuesday.
Fund Flows
The fund had outflows of about $6.3 billion in April, says the fund research group. "Although this was still an outflow, it was the fund's smallest since [founder Bill] Gross left the firm," Lamy explained.
Still, another month of redemptions brought PIMCO's total losses to $193.6 billion since January 2014, a 37% decrease in assets. "Outflows from PIMCO Total Return alone amounted to $113.3 billion in the space of eight months," the research expert said.
Overall PIMCO funds had outflows of $7.4 billion in April and $42.3 billion so far in 2015. The flagship Total Return fund has had net outflows of nearly $127 billion in the past year.
In the 12-month period ending April 30, Morningstar estimates the Newport Beach, Calif.-based group — which recently added ex-Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as a senior advisor — has seen its total assets under management drop from $523 billion a year earlier to roughly $355 billion. That represents a decline in overall fund market share of 1.5% — from about 4% to 2.5% today.
For its part, PIMCO says the April outflows from the Total Return Fund were slightly less than Morningstar's estimates: $5.6 billion. "The fund had $110.4 billion of assets at the end of the month," the company said in a statement earlier this month.
