Global capital flow shifts: "Anthropic Storm" hits technology hard; value stocks and bond funds become the "new safe havens"

Latest statistics show that although strong earnings reports from U.S. pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly (LLY.US) and AI server manufacturer supermicro Computer (SMCI.US) provided some support, global fund panic over the potential AI disruption of software triggered a historic-scale sell-off. This sharp decline also caused a rare large-scale sell-off of high-valuation tech stocks and momentum beta strategies. As a result, stock fund investment demand in the U.S. noticeably cooled during the week ending February 4.

LSEG Lipper’s latest data indicates that global investors only bought about $5.58 billion in U.S. equity funds that week, a significant drop of approximately 48% from the previous week’s net inflow of $10.82 billion.

The chart above summarizes weekly flows for U.S. stocks, bonds, and money market funds.

Earlier in January, Anthropic, dubbed a “strong rival to OpenAI,” launched Claude Cowork, an agent-based AI programming tool with significant engineering collaboration innovations. This tool aims to extend AI agent functions from programming terminals to general office scenarios such as file management and software interaction, intensifying market fears that AI agents could completely disrupt the SaaS software industry.

Since Tuesday of this week, the two main culprits behind the global software sector collapse have been Anthropic’s new AI tools: one capable of handling multiple document tasks, including compliance tracking and legal review, and the latest Thursday release, Claude Opus4.6, which excels in AI programming, financial analysis, legal document deep analysis, and Office collaboration—far surpassing the GPT-5.2 large model. Legal review, financial analysis, and proprietary data services are long-standing competitive advantages for most SaaS companies. Following Thursday’s update, financial data provider FactSet plummeted 10% intraday, while Thomson Reuters, S&P Global, Moody’s, and Nasdaq continued to decline, causing all three major U.S. stock indices to tumble.

Specifically, U.S. large-cap stock funds surprisingly saw about $1.1 billion in net inflows—highlighting ongoing bullish sentiment toward the “Magnificent Seven” tech giants (Google, Nvidia, Apple, etc.) and other blue-chip large-cap stocks. Meanwhile, mid-cap and small-cap stock funds experienced outflows of approximately $1.59 billion and $1.67 billion, respectively.

In sector funds, investors allocated $2.11 billion into traditionally undervalued value sectors—broad industrials—and about $1.44 billion into metals and mining. Conversely, there was a significant withdrawal of approximately $2.34 billion from technology sectors. This aligns with the current global stock market trend, where funds are reallocating in the short term amid the “tech/software shock”—first pulling out of high-volatility, highly uncertain, and overvalued tech sectors, then increasing positions in more cyclical, value-oriented, and resource-based sectors. This shift indicates a market risk appetite moving from tech toward value, cyclical, and resource assets.

The chart above summarizes weekly flow data for U.S. equity funds across specific industries and sectors.

Additionally, other data show that U.S. bond funds experienced five consecutive weeks of large-scale net inflows, totaling $11.11 billion in the latest week. Mid- to short-term investment-grade bond funds attracted about $6.34 billion, marking the largest weekly inflow since at least 2022.

In the same week, bond funds continued to see significant inflows, coupled with record large-scale net subscriptions in money market funds, suggesting a market risk appetite decline and a temporary shift toward cash and bonds.

Combining these fund flows, global investors are increasingly shifting their equity allocations toward value and cyclical sectors—such as industrials (AI, infrastructure, U.S. economic soft landing, and tangible manufacturing chain beneficiaries) and metals/mining (resources, inflation, cyclical allocation logic). This represents a large-scale rotation from high-volatility momentum beta strategies and overvalued, uncertain assets toward more visible value cash flows, stable fixed income, and physical resource assets.

Municipal bond funds and inflation-protected bond funds also attracted significant global net inflows of $2.38 billion and $1.34 billion, respectively.

The chart above summarizes weekly flows for U.S. bond funds.

Meanwhile, U.S. money market funds saw net inflows of $83.09 billion, the largest since the $105.08 billion inflow in the week ending December 3.