BOSTON (Reuters) - Investors flocked to money-market funds in the US in October to escape battered stock and bond markets, helping to reverse the record outflows of the previous month, data showed.

US mutual funds posted net inflows of $38.4 billion in October compared with outflows of $104.4 billion during the previous month, research firm Lipper Inc said in a report released yesterday. The data did not include exchange-traded funds.

"Investors sought the relative safety of money-market funds in October, adding an estimated $169.1 billion," Lipper said.

The inflows for money-market funds were the highest since August 2007, when they were $175.9 billion, and it was the second highest monthly number in 15 years.

Money-market funds saw outflows of $56.3 billion in September after the Reserve Primary Fund, one of the oldest money-market funds, said it would not give investors back all of their capital, unnerving them.

It was the first time in 14 years that a money-market fund, traditionally considered a safe investment, had done that. The Primary Fund said its move stemmed from losses it suffered from holding securities of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, which filed for bankruptcy in mid-September.

But investors returned to the funds after the US government guaranteed the investments and as stocks sank in October on worries about the economy amid a deepening financial crisis.

Stock and mixed-equity funds' outflows jumped 74 percent to $86.3 billion in October from $49.5 billion in the previous month, Lipper said.

Bond funds saw outflows of $44.4 billion during the month compared with inflows of $1.4 billion in September, Lipper said. It said the October bond fund outflows were the highest for a month in 15 years and beat the $16.6 billion in outflows posted in May 2004.

¿ T. Rowe Price Group Inc., the Baltimore-based manager of $345 billion, has opened two worldwide stock funds for US investors.

Global Large-Cap Fund and Global Real Estate Fund each will invest at least 40 percent of their money outside the US, T. Rowe Price said in a statement yesterday. Global Large-Cap will be managed by Scott Berg and Global Real Estate by David Lee.

"The US now represents only about 45 percent of the world's market capitalisation," Berg said in the statement. "We will actively seek the most attractive larger companies, wherever they may be headquartered."

The funds represent T. Rowe's first new global funds since its $103 million Global Technology Fund opened in September 2000. The MSCI EAFE Index of developed markets outside the US has fallen 53 percent this year.

Lee has managed T. Rowe's $1.71 billion Real Estate Fund, which focuses on the US, since 1997. It has declined 56 percent this year, ranking behind 55 percent of rival funds, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.