The only real exception I’ll take with the article is this point: “A record $135.5 billion was pulled out of U.S. stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) this year”.
I believe this may be due to a few things:
1) People taking new positions with new companies in the HOT job market and rolling over their 401ks resulting in a short term debit. I did this year, I know. Many may not have reinvested yet.
2) A number of people are taking small business loans using their 401Ks as a stake grub to invest in small business resulting in mutual fund/ETFs draw downs to fund their startups. I almost did this last year, but wife and I decided not to take the risk.
3) GE and some others announced pension opt outs which for me at least resulted in a significant chunk of cash in December - GE required payout in Dec of 2019 or you stayed in the pension - that will not be reinvested in January...probably the same for many others.
My point being that just because mutual funds and ETFs are seeing draw downs doesn’t mean the money isn’t still being invested.
Another... in my industry which is the Housing Industry I have noticed some people actually paying cash for their house and paying off their mortgages so that is also where some of the cash went.