Mutual fund sales managed to stay just above the $1 billion mark in June, although they were down notably on a month-over-month and year-over-year basis.

The Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC) said Monday that based on data from Investor Economics Inc. overall mutual fund sales totaled just $1.04 billion in June, down from $1.55 billion in May, and $1.7 billion in June 2011. For the month, long-term funds had net sales of $1.16 billion, and money market funds saw net redemptions of $125.2 million.

Bond funds led the net sales in June, with $1.23 billion worth, compared to net sales of $1.19 billion last month. Balanced funds generated $1.17 billion in net sales, which was down from $1.77 billion In May. And, equity funds had net redemptions of $1.54 billion, down slightly from $1.61 billion in May.

For the first half of 2012, industry net sales were $17.7 billion, which is down slightly from $18.9 billion in the same period last year. Uear to date, long-term funds have had just under $21 billion in net sales, compared with $23.4 billion in the first six months of 2011.

However, the picture is a bit darker when you look at net sales over the past 12 months. In that period, long-term funds have had net sales of $24.7 billion, down from $38.1 billion over the same period in 2011.

Total mutual fund assets under management for June were $796.7 billion, compared to $789.1 billion in the previous month; an increase of $7.6 billion, or 1.0%.