This week we announced daily updates to our MFO Premium fund flow tool; specifically, FLOW, which combines four plots for a single fund: total return, total net assets (TNA, aka AUM), total net flows, and daily or monthly flows (depending on how reported), each versus same time period. On funds that Lipper updates daily, like SPY, TIBIX, and in fact for most funds (approx. 11,500 oldest share classes; 26,000 all share classes), this tool will now enable users to assess performance and flows through the close of the last business day. This enhancement represents our first attempt at daily updates for the MFO Premium site, which, for the most part, focuses on month-ending performance, updated weekly. Interestingly enough, during the last two periods of severe daily volatility, March of 2020 (COVID) and April 2025 (Liberation), month-end returns were muted substantially from the daily gyrations, much to the delight of investors! But for those users who relate to trading based on trends, such as price movement and inflows/outflows, or for those who want to better understand the extent of daily movements, of say return and drawdown, these new daily updates should prove useful. Below is an example of FLOW chart output for Thornburg Investment Income Builder I (TIBIX) through last Friday.

For this example, the chart period is 10 months. The blue line indicates total return percentage since the start of that period, with values indicated on the right axis, as well as on the point tool (17.1%). The purple line indicates absolute TNA ($9.4B). The green line represents total net flows (-$19.7M). The vertical bar chart at the bottom indicates the daily flows across the ten months, with inflow highlighted in green and outflow highlighted in red. Lipper updates the daily flow data twice daily: at about 9 pm Pacific and again at 9 am. Whatever funds do not make the nightly drop, the morning drop should pick up. We will try to post updates after each, providing insight before markets close the following day. Most funds do get updates daily, but not all. About 900 funds are only updated monthly; unfortunately, these are some of the most popular open-ended funds, including many Vanguard, PIMCO, and Dodge & Cox funds. The latter actually delays releasing the flow data until the following month. FLOW remains one of the easiest to use on the premium site. Just click FLOW in the navigation bar at the top of any page. Then, punch in the ticker symbol and hit return.