Global equity fund inflows surge on Middle East ceasefire boost

April 10 (Reuters) – Global equity fund inflows nearly doubled in the week through April 8 as a two-week Middle East ceasefire raised hopes of a resumption of shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

Investors pumped a net $23.47 billion into global equity funds, when compared with net acquisitions of approximately $12.11 billion in the prior week, LSEG Lipper data showed.

Asian shares were on track for the best week in more than three years, with gains of over 7%.

U.S. equity funds attracted $9.76 billion, a nearly 80% increase in inflows from $5.42 billion in net purchases the previous week. European and Asian funds also attracted $9.1 billion and $2 billion of net inflows.

For equity sectoral funds, net purchases reached $4.79 billion, the highest since February 18. Investors injected a net $3.88 billion, $1.36 billion and $530 million, respectively into tech, industrial and utility sector funds.

Global bond funds had weekly net investments of $13.87 billion, partly reversing $19.25 billion of outflows the week before.

Short-term bond funds and government bond funds gained $7.5 billion and $3.4 billion, respectively on a net basis after a week of outflows.

After a gap of two weeks, money market funds also attracted inflows of $72.05 billion.

On the commodities markets, gold and other precious metals commodity funds attracted their second successive weekly inflow, totalling a net $1.9 billion.

Emerging markets, meanwhile, witnessed a revival of buying interest as investors pumped $2.77 billion into equities and $228 million into bonds after four successive weekly net sales, data for a combined 28,765 funds showed.

(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra; editing by Barbara Lewis)