Year-to-date redemptions for mutuals more than double last year's total
Canadian mutual funds posted net redemptions of $5.7 billion in August, a new monthly high for 2023, while ETFs continued in positive territory.
Money market funds showed the highest net sales across all major asset classes in August for both mutual funds and ETFs, with the majority going into high-interest saving account (HISA) funds.
The latest data from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC) brings the year-to-date total net redemptions for mutual funds to $23.2 billion, well above the $9.8 billion in the same period of 2022.
Mutual fund assets also saw a decrease last month, down $13.6 or 0.7% to $1.9 trillion, although year-to-date assets are up 5% or $91 billion.
Digging down into the redemptions, total long-term funds lost more than $7 billion, led by balanced (-$4.8 billion), equity (-$2.2 billion), and bond (-$513 million), with net sales of $366 million for speciality. Money market funds posted net sales of $1.4 billion.
A year ago, net redemptions for balanced funds were $2.4 billion and total net redemptions for Canadian mutual funds were $3.1 billion.
Last month, 33% of mutual funds had positive net sales.
ETF asset loss
Meanwhile, Canadian exchange-traded funds also saw a decrease in assets in August.
The $1.8 billion decrease (down 0.5% compared to July) took the total value to $355 billion. However overall assets increased by $41.3 billion, or 13.2% year to date.
ETFs continued to see net sales though with $1.9 billion recorded last month, continuing the recent downward trend.
With the exception of specialty long-term funds, all asset classes posted net sales led by $1 billion for money market funds, $641 million for bonds, $335 million for equity, and $140 million for balanced.
One year ago, the total net sales for Canadian ETFs was $1.5 billion.
Year-to-date, net sales were $23 billion, up from $19 billion for the same period of 2022.
More than half (52%) of ETFs had positive net sales in August.
