Mutual fund net sales came in just shy of $1.5 billion for October, the Investment Funds Institute of Canada reported Monday.

Overall net sales for October were $1.46 billion, up from $252.2 million in September, and $82.6 million in October 2009, IFIC said.

The historical data has been revised to reflect the fact that Invesco Trimark Ltd. is no longer a member of IFIC, and is therefore not reporting its sales data to the association. For example, last month, IFIC reported overall net redemptions of $82.1 million for September. However, with Invesco no longer included in the data, September’s sales results have been revised to a positive $252.2 million.

In October, total sales were comprised of $2.56 billion in long-term fund net sales and $1.1 billion in money market net redemptions. Long-term fund sales were up from $1.55 billion in September, and were more or less flat compared with October 2009. Money market net redemptions slowed a bit in October compared to the previous month, when they were $1.3 billion; and they are down notably from the same month last year, when they reached $2.51 billion.

Balanced funds continued to top the sales charts in October, with $1.98 billion in net sales, up from just over $1 billion last month, and $1.73 billion in the same month last year, IFIC said.

IFIC also reported that fixed income fund net sales were $1.37 billion, down from $1.68 billion last month, but up from $1.17 billion last October.

Equity funds, however, had net redemptions of $820.6 million last month, down from $1.15 billion in net redemptions in September, but up from net redemptions of $283 million in October 2009.

RBC led the way in October net sales, with $393.6 million worth, as $775.6 million in long-term sales overwhelmed $382 million in money market redemptions.

Dynamic Funds and TD Asset Management were the other firms with more than $300 million in overall net sales. They also ranked second and third to RBC in long-term net sales.

IFIC also reported that mutual fund assets totalled $615.9 billion at the end of October, up $11.3 billion or 1.9% from September. Assets increased by $49.7 billion or 8.8% since the beginning of the year and by $71.5 billion or 13.1% since October 2009, it said.

“We’ve seen some of the largest long-term fund asset growth of the last 10 years occur in the last 12 months. Of the $91 billion increase in the past year in long-term fund assets, $29 billion has come from net sales and a full $62 billion has come from market performance,” said Jon Cockerline, director of policy at IFIC.

“Equity fund performance has been particularly strong over the last three months, though we have yet to see fund investors take advantage of this trend except indirectly, through their balanced fund and fund-of-fund purchases,” he added.

IE