Mutual funds flows remain a fantastic way to gauge small investor sentiment which is often inversely correlated to future stock market returns.  Stock fund flows for April surged to 12.33 billion.  As you can see in the chart below stock fund flows have had a very high inverse correlation to stocks.  Small investors pull their funds at exactly the wrong time and invest at exactly the wrong time.  The early figures in May are also showing strong stock inflows with over $7B in flows for the first two weeks.  The last time we saw flows this high was right at the March ‘08 high.

Source: IBD