The RRSP season is off to a slower start this year, with mutual fund industry net sales for January coming in at $2.6 billion, down from just over $3 billion in the same month last year.
Once again, long-term sales were offset by money market redemptions. Long-term net sales were $3.55 billion in January, down from $4.1 billion in January 2011. Money market funds had net redemptions of $910.7 million, down from just over $1 billion in the same month last year.
The sales data was released Thursday by the Investment Funds Institute of Canada, based on data compiled by Toronto’s Investor Economics Inc.
Bond funds were the top-selling asset class in January, recording $2.38 billion of monthly net sales, compared to net sales of just $275.5 million last January.
Balanced funds saw net sales of $1.9 billion, compared to net sales of $3.7 billion a year ago.
Equity funds had net redemptions of $1.06 billion in January, sharply higher than net redemptions of $8.9 million in January 2011.
Total mutual fund assets under management for January came in at $791.2 billion, compared to $769.7 billion in December 2011; an increase of $21.5 billion, or 2.8%. However, total mutual fund assets have only increased slightly since January 2011, up by just $3.9 billion, or 0.5%, in that period.