Fidelity sees $9.9 bln outflow in Jan - research

BOSTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - U.S. money manager Fidelity Investments suffered $9.9 billion in outflows from its U.S. stock and bond funds in January, the most outflows among asset managers for the month, as markets slumped, data show.

The outflows at Fidelity, the world's biggest biggest mutual fund firm, followed inflows of $2.3 billion in December and compares with inflows of $2.9 billion in January 2007, according to data from funds flow research firm Financial Research Corp (FRC) on Tuesday.

FRC numbers are considered benchmarks in the $12 trillion U.S. mutual fund industry, even though they exclude flows into money market funds.

Fidelity spokesman Vin Loporchio said the firm saw total net inflows of $14.4 billion in January, including money market fund inflows of $20.3 billion, bond fund inflows of $1.6 billion and equity fund outflows of $7.5 billion.

Loporchio said many of Fidelity's stock funds remained closed to new investors in January, but stock, bond and money market funds were seeing inflows in February.

Fears of a U.S. recession and a deepening credit crunch battered global stock markets in January, knocking 4.6 percent off the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average .DJI, its worst January since 2000.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index .SPX shed 6.2 percent, its worst January since 1990, while the Nasdaq composite index .IXIC fell 9.9 percent, its worst-ever January performance. The indices fell in early February but have recovered ground subsequently.

After Fidelity, exchange-traded fund (ETF) player State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) suffered the most outflows, of $8.9 billion. SSgA is a unit of State Street Corp (STT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

Vanguard Group and PIMCO Funds, a unit of German insurer Allianz (ALVG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), posted the strongest inflows of $8.0 billion and $4.5 billion, respectively, according to FRC data.

The $120 billion PIMCO Total Return Fund, managed by PIMCO founder and star bond manager Bill Gross, was the top selling fund in January as investors fled equity markets. The fund got net inflows of $4.1 billion for the month, the data show. (Reporting by Muralikumar Anantharaman, editing by Richard Chang)