ETFs continue to be the Canadian investment funds of choice, IFIC stats reveal
The divergence of Canadian mutual funds and ETFs continued in September with withdrawals from the ‘old faithful’ escalating while the relative newcomer posted another month of net sales.
New stats from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada show that 30% of mutual funds had positive net sales compared to 51% of exchange-traded funds.
Net redemptions from mutual funds totalled $7.6 billion, below the year-ago total of $9 billion, but way above the $5.7 billion pullback in August.
Money market funds remained the clear outlier with net sales of $1.6 billion, continuing an upward trend for the asset class which has seen $11.8 billion in net sales year-to-date, more than three times the total for the same period of 2022. There was also a positive result for specialty funds with $133 million net sales.
However, there were net redemptions for balanced (-$6.2 billion), equity (-$2.2 billion), and bond (-$890 million).
Year-to-date total withdrawals increased to $30.7 billion compared to $18.7 billion in the same period of 2022.
Mutual fund assets totalled $1.8 trillion at the end of September, a decrease of $64.8 billion or 3.4%
Month-over-month.
ETFs increase sales
Meanwhile, ETFs remained the favoured Canadian investment fund group with net sales of $2.9 billion, adding $1 billion to their August sales total, and ending a recent trend for lower month-over-month totals.
As with mutuals, money market funds are a strong favourite for ETF investors with $1.3 billion in net sales. Unlike mutuals though, ETFs saw net sales across asset classes with bonds leading the long-term funds with $1 billion, followed by equity with $334 million, balanced with $188 million, and speciality with $18 million.
Year-to-date net sales for ETFs totalled $26 billion, up from $21 billion in the first eight months of 2022, while August’s total was more than $1 billion higher than the same month in 2022.
ETF assets totalled $346.5 billion at the end of September, down $8.5 billion or 2.4% month-over-month.
