The Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC) on Thursday launched its 2018 Investment Funds Report.
The web-based year-end report provides statistics and analysis of both mutual fund and ETF sales activity and assets under management (AUM) for 2018, IFIC says in a release.
The investment funds trade group says it will now report both mutual fund and ETF data on a monthly basis.
“IFIC’s data collection and analysis are critical to the understanding of the Canadian investment funds industry to enable us to identify trends and evaluate the impact of regulatory and policy actions. Including ETF data in our reporting provides a more comprehensive view of the investment funds industry,” says Paul Bourque, IFIC president and CEO of IFIC, in a statement.
Mutual funds only generated $109 million in net sales in 2018, according to the report, while ETFs posted net sales of $20.5 billion in net sales, accounting for almost all of total investment fund net sales of $20.6 billion.
However, mutual funds continue to dominate industry AUM, accounting for over 90% of fund assets. The Canadian investment fund industry finished the year with $1.58 trillion in overall AUM, with mutual funds representing $1.42 trillion and ETFs $156.7 billion.
Volatile markets had a negative impact on industry assets, trimming $54 billion, or 3.7%, from total AUM during 2018. Nevertheless, AUM has more than doubled since 2008, adding $975 billion, the report says.
The rise in ETFs is highlighted by the recent growth in the number of firms entering that market. At the end of 2018, there were 33 firms offering ETFs, which has more than doubled over the past three years. ETF managers introduced 106 new ETFs in 2018, bringing the total number of ETFs to 660. Mutual fund managers launched 166 new funds during the year, with the total number of mutual funds reaching 3,454 funds.
For the report, IFIC direct survey data was complemented by Morningstar Canada Inc. for ETFs.