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4 Reasons Investors Are Buying Stocks Now

Investment Directions submits:

This year investors' interest in stocks is charged up. The question being debated is "Why?"

Here are four drivers of investors' stock buying.

1. A desire to resume normal stock buying

Individuals, as a whole, build assets over their working lives, and make withdrawals during retirement.

Because accumulation inflows are larger than distribution outflows, investors buy more than they sell. Historically, stocks represent a large portion of that buying. However, bond buying and even stock selling was the norm from 2008 through 2010.

The best way to view the change in investors' actions is to examine mutual fund flows. Here is the latest picture:

Click to enlarge:

Over the past seven weeks, $49 billion went into long-term funds, of which $23 billion (47%) went into U.S. stock funds and $10 billion (20%) went into international stock funds, for a total of $33 billion (67%).

This 67% is within a "normal"

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