Inflows to US equity funds continued over the last week, according to the latest update. Because of course they did.

I’ll ask again: What would you rather own, equity wise? Chinese stocks? And be beholden to the whims of a reincarnated Mao? European shares? And be tethered to a perpetually beleaguered economy and become neighbors with Vladimir Putin? How about South Korean shares? How’s your appetite for military juntas? And speaking of bad neighborhoods.

It’s the US or dicey. Not that America isn’t dicey these days. It is. But the locus of concern (“Individual-1”) also happens to be obsessively focused on stock prices, so that helps. And if you buy the cap-weighted index in the US, you’re effectively buying monopolies. As I never tire of reminding readers, the monopoly business is a good one if you can get away with it. Oh, and those monopolies also happen to be at the forefront of the AI revolution.

So, yeah, they’re buying US shares. Because they have to. TINA. This week’s $8 billion inflow actually counted as small by recent standards. Recall that the four-week inflow dating to Election Week in the US was the largest on record, at $141 billion.

With this week’s influx, the total YTD inflow to US-focused funds stands at $450 billion, give or take.

The breakdown for RoW flows showed a third straight outflow from Japan and a tenth straight week of redemptions from European equities. Emerging market-focused funds managed to snap a long streak of outflows with a minuscule $600 million inflow.

Want to see something pitiful? Have a look at this:

Suffice to say no one’s especially excited about the prospects for Europe where, to reiterate, economic dynamism is severely lacking and the security situation is increasingly perilous.

For the year, European-focused funds have shed a net $61 billion of AUM.

All told, global equity funds have taken in $661 billion on net this year. The split’s $1.04 trillion to ETFs and $383 billion from mutual funds. (Active-to-passive ongoing.)