10 Biggest Funds Lose $9.3 Billion in July

How bad was the U.S. stock market in July? Well, here’s one way to measure it: The nation’s 10 biggest mutual funds lost a combined $9.3 billion in assets.

The amount of money that evaporated from these funds alone is more than the gross domestic products of such countries as Ghana ($6.6 billion), Costa Rica ($6.4 billion), Honduras ($5.5 billion) and Angola ($5.1 billion), according to the World Almanac.

“July was the worst month for aggressive equity fund investors since the market crash of 1987,” said Bill Daugherty, president of Kanon Bloch Carre, a retirement-plan consulting firm in Boston. “No equity investors made money last month.”

The bulk of the asset loss for the big funds was tied to the falling market, and a smaller percentage can be attributed to shareholder redemptions, Daugherty said. The benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 4.6% in July and the Nasdaq composite index was down 8.8%.

Fidelity Investments’ Magellan Fund recorded the biggest loss of assets and the highest level of redemptions by shareholders withdrawing their money. None of the other large funds reported substantial net outflows of investments.

Magellan was down 4.7% on a total-return basis and its assets fell $3.5 billion, or 6.4%, in July.

The fund recording the worst return in July was Twentieth Century Cos.’ flagship Ultra Investors Fund, which fell 8.9% on a total-return basis, according to Lipper Analytical Services Inc. Ultra fund’s assets declined 8.6% to $15.9 billion as of July 31 from $17.4 billion on June 30, the company said.

The difference between Ultra and Magellan is that Fidelity saw investors redeem almost $1 billion from Magellan, whereas net withdrawals were negligible for Ultra.

The other fund to lose $1 billion last month was Capital Research & Management Co.’s Investment Company of America, as assets fell to $27.1 billion from $28.1 billion, the company said.