How to tell how many index fund holders sell during a crash?

[Xlar]

Is there a way to tell how many index fund holders sell during a crash? Even on the MMM forum there are quite a number of people trying to time the market and I was wondering if there was a way to quantify that number.

I looked at VOO but all the graphs I can find show the total fund value in $, not in number of shares owned by investors. On this page (https://www.etf.com/VOO#fit) there is a volume graph, I can see that there is a large spike in March but I don't see a way to determine how much of that is people selling or people buying.

I also tried looking at the Vanguard assets under management. I find graphs like this but they are all in $ and it's hard to tell when the market drops if the drop is just from that or if there are significant numbers of people removing there funds from Vanguard. https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/qz-production-atlas-assets/charts/atlas_BycR_ZAhb@2x.png

Anyways, hopefully it makes sense what I am looking for.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

You can search for "largest etfs" and visit etfdb.com.  Each individual ETF has a section "fund flows" that shows the net inflow/outflow over various time frames.

For example the largest ETF in the world, SPY, had $20B of net outflow over the past 4 weeks... owch.  This past week saw $1B of net inflows.
The third largest ETF, VOO, had $6B of net inflow in 4 weeks, half of that in the past week.

[Xlar]

You can search for "largest etfs" and visit etfdb.com.  Each individual ETF has a section "fund flows" that shows the net inflow/outflow over various time frames.

For example the largest ETF in the world, SPY, had $20B of net outflow over the past 4 weeks... owch.  This past week saw $1B of net inflows.
The third largest ETF, VOO, had $6B of net inflow in 4 weeks, half of that in the past week.

This is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you :)

[marty998]

Each month Vanguard Australia releases to the stockmarket the number of ETF units on issue in each fund.

In the major share index fund VAS, the number of units increased from January to February, so there was net buying.

We'll wait and see what happened in March when the data is released in the first week of April.

[Xlar]

Each month Vanguard Australia releases to the stockmarket the number of ETF units on issue in each fund.

In the major share index fund VAS, the number of units increased from January to February, so there was net buying.

We'll wait and see what happened in March when the data is released in the first week of April.

That's also very interesting. Is there a way to look up those stats online?

[marty998]

Company announcements section?

Not relevant if you're not invested in Aussie stocks.

[vand]

It's difficult to give meaningful percentages, but the headline anecdotes tell us that there is record mutual fund outflows:

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/coronavirus-economic-impact-record-stock-market-bond-fund-outflows-recession-2020-3-1029017359

Investors never get smarter, do they? You'd think that it's easy to pull up a chart in this day and age and see that whenever the market takes a complete nosedive that is the time to be buying, but living through it is a completely different ballgame.

No matter what form the market takes, investing in penny stocks or passive worldwide indexes, people get carried away when they investments go up and frightened/forced into selling when they see their investments evapourating.

[John Galt incarnate!]

Investors never get smarter, do they? You'd think that it's easy to pull up a chart in this day and age and see that whenever the market takes a complete nosedive that is the time to be buying, but living through it is a completely different ballgame.

No matter what form the market takes, investing in penny stocks or passive worldwide indexes, people get carried away when they investments go up and frightened/forced into selling when they see their investments evapourating.

When the value of their portfolio plunges investors' feelings of loss/fear/unhappiness/anxiety  are 2.3-2.5 X the intensity of their feelings of gain/happiness/contentment when the value of their portfolio surges.

Predictably, under the influence of these intensified emotions average investors sell to relieve their "pain" thereby assuring they  underperform the market.


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[ctuser1]

The outflow numbers can be a little misleading.

Not all outflow is for mom and pop fund holders selling.

There are a some hedge funds, institutional investors etc. who are levered up (somewhere, anywhere) who now needs funds to cover the leverage. Well, you sell something to do so. So you get selling pressure in all assets.