LONDON: Global equity funds saw their first outflows in 2021 as rising pessimism about US President Joe Biden's spending plans triggered large outflows, while cash, government, debt and gold saw heavy inflows, a weekly round-up by BofA showed on Friday.

At $24.2 billion, global stock funds saw their biggest outflows since March 2020 as investors cut their equity holdings in favour of cash where they ploughed in $39.6 billion of funds, BofA said, citing EPFR data. Bond funds saw inflows of $10 billion.

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"Pessimism over passage of the $1 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill and $3.5 trillion build back better Reconciliation caused the second biggest outflow ever from infrastructure funds and largest from consumer funds on a year-to-date basis," analysts led by Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at the bank, said in a note.