Canadian investors eased the pace of withdrawals from mutual funds in November, as fund companies posted net redemptions of $909.8 million, the Investment Funds Institute of Canada reported Monday.

That’s down sharply from October’s $8.4 billion in net redemptions. Last November, net sales were $1.81 billion, IFIC said.

The redemptions of long-term funds slowed to net $2.36 billion last month, compared with $6.52 billion in October,

Monthly sales of money market funds were positive at $1.45 billion, up October’s $1.88 billion in redemptions, the industry group said.

The industry’s assets under management totalled $552.07 billion at the end of November, down by 3.4% from October and by 20.7% from a year earlier.

“In November, we saw fund sales fall in line with what we saw over the first eight months of 2008 – large flows into Canadian money market funds and little or no sales to long-term funds,” commented Pat Dunwoody, IFIC’s vp of communications.

IE