Long-term funds remained on the net redemption side of the scale in August, according to the latest data from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.

August net sales, excluding re-invested distributions of $223.4 million, totaled minus $100 million. “Sales for August improved by over $1 billion from July,” says Tom Hockin, IFIC’s president and CEO. “Year-to-date sales of long-term funds still remain 1.6% higher than last year.”

IFIC also reported the total number of member unitholder accounts at 52.9 million, a 1.7% increase over one year ago.

Nevertheless, the numbers are a bit weaker than the headline sales number would suggest. Money market funds managed to produce almost $106 million in positive net sales in the month. Long-term funds generated $206 million in net redemptions for the month. The long-term trends tend to reflect the
fundamental health of sales, whereas the short-term sales tend to be volatile and very dependent on interest rates.

On the long-term side, the redemptions were concentrated in domestic and foreign equity funds. Foreign equity funds led the way with $267.4 million
in net redemptions. The Canadian equity funds suffered $218 .5 million in net redemptions. However, against this tide of redemptions, dividend funds
managed $124.3 million in positive net sales, and U.S. equity funds recorded $90.6 million in positive sales.

Total assets under management decreased in August to $400.3 billion, down 0.1% from $400.5 billion in July. Assets are down 1.4% from last August’s figure of $405.9 billion.

Among fund firms, the relative strength of money market funds was also reflected in firms’ asset performance. Specifically, the banks, which sell
the lion’s share of short-term funds, enjoyed the strongest asset performance. Scotia led the way with an 8% gain in assets, and the assets at most of the big banks were at least flat to positive. TD was the exception, its assets fell 0.5% in the month.

There was also weakness in some of the big independents, such as Fidelity, Templeton, AGF and Altamira. AIC, PH&N and Dynamic had relatively strong performances, as did Clarington, Guardian and Elliott & Page.