ETF fund flows dominate in Sept - FRC

BOSTON Oct 25 (Reuters) - Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) helped Barclays Global Investors and State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) pull in the most money in September among asset managers into U.S. stock and bond mutual funds, data show.

Putnam Investments and American Century Investments saw the most outflows in the month, but the general levels of outflows were smaller than in August, data from funds flow research firm Financial Research Corp (FRC) showed on Thursday.

Barclays Global and SSgA, the top two ETF players, got net inflows of $9.5 billion and $6.8 billion, respectively, for the month, FRC said. ETFs are low-cost mutual funds that track indices but trade on exchanges like a stock.

Barclays Global is a unit of British bank Barclays (BARC.L) while SSgA is a unit of State Street Corp (STT.N).

FRC numbers are considered benchmarks in the $11.5 trillion mutual fund industry, even though they can vary widely from the numbers that mutual fund companies report because FRC does not include money market funds.

Putnam, a unit of Canada's Power Financial Corp (PWF.TO) saw outflows of $872 million in the month while American Century, in which JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) owns a 45 percent stake, saw outflows of $850 million, FRC said.

After a volatile August for markets on worries about the subprime mortgage crisis and a drying up of credit, stocks rose in September, energized by the 50 basis points cut in interest rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 index .SPX rose 3.6 percent in September. (Reporting by Muralikumar Anantharaman)