Latest industry figures show ETF space outselling mutual funds amid recovery
The Investment Funds Industry of Canada (IFIC) has released its latest report showing asset levels and monthly net flows for Canadian-domiciled mutual funds and ETFs.
During the month of October, equity ETFs took in $1.86 billion in net sales, a more-than-ample recovery from the roughly $1 billion in net redemptions they suffered in the previous month. Bond ETF net sales were flat month-on-month as the category absorbed roughly $1 billion in September as well as October.
Adding the $123 million in net sales for balanced ETFs and $162 million for specialty ETFs, net inflows for long-term ETFs amounted to roughly $3.2 billion in October; money market ETFs absorbed $621 million for the month. All in all, IFIC reported total net sales of just over $3.84 billion for Canadian ETFs, roughly seven times what they collected in September.
From an AUM perspective, the report showed $188.6 billion in AUM for long-term ETFs in October, consisting of $4.5 billion in balanced strategies; $117.9 billion in equity ETFs; $62.9 billion in bond ETFs, and $3.3 billion in specialty ETFs. Money-market funds, meanwhile, reportedly held $3.7 billion in assets.
Looking at mutual funds, redemptions from equity strategies decelerated, with roughly $1.7 billion in net outflows reported last month compared to $2.5 billion in September. Net inflows into bond funds also slowed down, from September’s $2.6 billion in net sales to $1.7 billion in October.
Balanced funds saw net inflows of $593 million last month, while specialty funds netted $722 in sales; money-market mutual funds took in a modest $37 million in net inflows. With that, net inflows into Canadian mutual funds for October reached $1.3 billion, practically matching the previous month.
Long-term mutual funds ended October with $1.56 trillion in net assets, including $805.2 billion in balanced funds; $514.3 billion in equity strategies; $215.4 billion in bond funds; and $25.6 billion in specialty funds. Money-market funds logged net assets of $29.6 billion by the end of October.
