Don't write off actively managed U.S.-stock mutual funds just yet.

Conventional wisdom these days is that investors want nothing to do with U.S. stocks, especially when it comes to traditional, actively managed mutual funds. Instead, investors are often depicted as frantically—and perhaps irrationally—rushing to put their money into anything that's a bond fund or an exchange-traded fund.

But the reality is much more nuanced. In a world where uncertainty is high and interest rates are at rock bottom, investors remain willing to move money into traditional stock funds that offer dividends or otherwise tempting income streams.

"Investors are looking for yield anywhere they can find it," says Tom Roseen, a senior analyst at Thomson Reuters Corp.'s Lipper unit.

Overall, through Oct. 26, investors this year withdrew $62 billion from diversified U.S.-stock mutual funds and poured $263 billion into bond funds, according to Lipper. At the same time, diversified U.S.-stock ETFs have attracted nearly $15 billion. That has suggested to some that the dissatisfaction isn't just with years of wild swings in U.S. stocks, but a more fundamental unhappiness with the inability of highly paid fund managers to generate market-beating returns.

But look a little deeper at the numbers, and a different picture emerges.

Dividend-focused "equity income" funds, not counting ETFs in that Lipper category, have taken in $16 billion. That amounts to an 8.3% increase in assets. That's also roughly three times the amount of money going into ETFs in the same Lipper category.

Another area attracting interest is funds focused on real-estate stocks. It's another category that can juice the income thrown off a portfolio, thanks to big holdings of real-estate investment trusts. U.S. real-estate stock funds, excluding ETFs, have attracted nearly $5 billion so far this year, and global real-estate funds $1.9 billion. U.S. real-estate stock ETFs, meanwhile, have taken in just shy of $6 billion.

Even among broader U.S.-stock funds, the news isn't as bleak as the headline numbers might suggest. Traditional large-cap growth funds have taken in $1.7 billion so far in 2012.

That may be a blip compared with the $516 billion in assets those funds hold, but it shows that not all broad categories of stock funds are suffering.

In this case, Mr. Roseen thinks it's the appeal of technology stocks—most notably Apple Inc. —that populate growth funds that are keeping investors' interest.

Taken together, the shifts seen in investor preferences may reflect a rational reallocation of their money, not just a knee-jerk reaction to disappointment with actively managed U.S.-stock funds.

"People are saying, 'Let's put our money where it's going to work better,' " says Mr. Roseen.

Send questions and comments to Mr. Lauricella at