Mutual funds managed $304 million in net sales for August, according to the latest numbers from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.
All of the sales came in long-term funds, with these sectors producing $370.5 million in net sales. Money market funds witnessed $66.4 million in net redemptions, amid continued low interest rates.
“Net sales for the month of August were $304 million, compared with net redemptions of $100 million from the same period, one year ago. Money market redemptions have steadily decreased from a monthly high of $1.3 billion in April of this year to only $66 million for August,” said Tom Hockin, IFIC’s president and CEO, in a news release.
Investors remain cautious about the markets however, as their asset allocation decisions show. Almost all of the positive long-term sales came in the dividend funds. The category produced $387.5 million in net sales. Bond funds came second with $237.3 million in net sales. Balanced funds added just $59.6 million in net sales.
The equity funds continue to slump. There were modest positive sales in U.S. equities. However, the big pure equity categories continue to suffer net redemptions, with $192.7 million coming out of Canadian equity funds and $179.5 million in redemptions from international equity funds.
Total assets under management increased in August to $412.9 billion, up 2.4% from $403.2 billion in July. Assets are up 3.1% from last August’s figure of $400.3 billion. “Within the last five months alone, the industry has increased a total of $43.5 billion or 11.8%,” said Hockin.
RBC Asset Management had a huge asset gain in the month, jumping 11.2%. But this reflects a technical change, as RBC has added its private pools to its IFIC reporting. These pools add $3.3 billion in assets to its August balance.
Most of the other big bank-owned firms and big independent players had below-average growth. The only top 20 firms to enjoy above-average asset growth were Dynamic, Guardian and Manulife. Smaller players such as Synergy, Standard Life, Brandes, Northwest, and Acuity also enjoyed strong growth.
IFIC also reported the total number of member unitholder accounts at 51.2 million, a 3.2% decrease over one year ago.