The Investment Funds Institute of Canada reported another lousy month for fund sales in October, with another $1.1 billion pulled from funds in the month.

Net sales for all funds including re-invested distributions were minus $910 million. The redemption activity was spread across both short- and long-term funds, with more than $450 million coming out of money market funds in the month, and another $686.4 billion leaving long-term funds.

“Consistent with the previous month, net redemptions for the month of October remain at $1.1 billion,” said Tom Hockin, IFIC’s president and CEO, in a news release. “Total net redemptions for the last seven months represent only 1.3% of the total assets in the industry.”

Foreign equity funds remained the biggest target for redemptions in October, with more than $299 million pulled from those funds in the month. Another $231 million came out of balanced funds, and Canadian equity funds lost $195.8 million. U.S. equity funds dropped just $21.5 million. However, investors showed some signs of faith by plowing $110.8 million into dividend and income funds.

Markets actually rallied impressively in October, but investors found themselves looking at some grim quarterly statements, and that appeared to dominate their decision-making. Still, the market rally helped boost total assets under management in October to $385.8 billion, up 1.2% from $381.1 billion in September. Assets are down 2.6% from last October’s figure of $396.3 billion.

Several firms saw their assets increase better than the national average, with strong performances coming from AIM, Franklin Templeton, AIC and PH&N. Among smaller players, Manulife, Synergy, McLean Budden and Standard Life all had a good month.

The banks were generally hardest hit by the combination of money market and long-term redemptions. RBC saw its assets drop 0.5%. BMO was weak, as was HSBC, Scotia, Altamira, Guardian and Mackenzie.

IFIC also reported the total number of member unitholder accounts at 52.6 million, a 1.8% increase over one year ago.