Some of the largest US asset managers are on course to report annualised net inflows for the final three months of 2011, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley - the first time this has happened in more than two years.

In the third quarter of 2008, a period that included the collapse of US bank Lehman Brothers, US fund managers suffered annualised outflows equal to about 10% of total assets under management. There was a brief spate of inflows in the second quarter of 2009 but since then annualised flows have been negative, according to a Morgan Stanley report published this week.