IFIC stats show February was a positive month overall for Canadian investment funds
For eleven consecutive months Canadian mutual funds have recorded net redemptions of varying degrees, but February finally brought the funds back into the black with net sales of $3.2 billion.
Newly released stats from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada also reveal that total assets for mutuals surpassed $2 trillion for the first time in almost two years, adding $57.1 billion or 2.9% month-over-month.
The long-time-coming rebound for mutual funds, hinted at with a smaller net redemptions total in January than had been seen in most months last year, was led by long-term bonds and equity funds, with net sales of $1.8 billion and $1.5 billion respectively. Specialty funds posted net sales of $775 million, while money market funds recorded $40 million in net redemptions.
The changes month-over-month for mutual funds were most noted for balanced funds, which slowed their net redemptions from $4.5 billion, equity funds, which had posted $1 billion in net redemptions, and money market funds which had net sales of almost half a billion dollars in January.
What about ETFs?
Better news for Canadian mutual funds has not been at the expense of exchange-traded funds.
ETFs improved on their January net sales with a total of $5.5 billion (from $3.2 billion) with net sales for equity funds surging to $4 billion (from $2.4 billion), and bonds tripling to $1.2 billion (from $312 million).
Balanced funds posted net sales of $450 million (up from $403 million in January), speciality tipped into net sales with $22 million (from net redemptions of $346 million), but money market funds saw net redemptions of $207 million compared to net sales of $401 million in the previous month.
ETF assets reached a new high, surpassing the $400 billion mark for the first time ever, adding $16 billion or 4.1% since January.
