LONDON - Investors dumped technology stocks at the fastest rate on record and continued to pour money into investment grade bonds and cash equivalents in the week to Wednesday, Bank of America said on Friday, citing data from EPFR.

Tech stocks saw $4.4 billion of outflows in the latest week, their "largest outflow ever" and the first outflow in nine weeks, BofA said in its weekly roundup of fund flows in and out of world markets, without specifying how far back its figures went.

The data covers the week to Wednesday, March 6, when U.S. tech stocks fell sharply. That included Apple, whose shares finished 2.8% lower after a research report showed iPhone sales in China fell 24% year-on-year in the first six weeks of 2024.

Tech shares have since rebounded somewhat and the S&P 500 hit another closing high on Thursday. Its large gains in recent months have been mainly led by large technology companies.

There were $32 billion of flows into cash and $13.3 billion into investment grade bonds, the largest inflow since September 2020, BofA said.

Cash equivalent money market funds have seen significant inflows over the past year because of high yields on the very short-term government debt they hold.

"$6 trillion to $7 trillion in money market funds and all of it getting 5% in interest ... maybe that's what's giving everyone the confidence to go speculate," BofA said.

Tech aside, equities saw the seventh straight week of inflows, with investors adding $6.9 billion. Real estate stocks stood out with inflows of $1.2 billion, the most in two years.

Crypto funds registered inflows of $1.9 billion in the week. Bitcoin, the world's largest crypto currency by market value, hit a record high of $69,202 on Tuesday, before retreating.

(Reporting by Alun John; Editing by Amanda Cooper and Milla Nissi)