Mutual fund investors showed a preference for bond funds last month, while ETF investors piled into equities, according to data from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC).
Canadian ETFs and mutual funds each racked up just over $2.6 billion in net sales in May, according to IFIC. Although the total inflow was near identical for both types of products, that’s where the similarities ended.
Bond funds dominated mutual fund sales, raking in a total of $1.8 billion. ETFs, meanwhile, saw a net outflow of $56 million from bond funds.
ETF investors pumped $1.9 billion into equity funds — compared to a $297 million equity inflow on the mutual fund side.
Mutual fund investors put $447 million into specialty funds and $817 into money market funds. Balanced funds saw an outflow of $740 million.
ETF investors pumped $335 million into specialty funds, $402 million into money market funds and $73 million into balanced funds.
While the flow patterns were different, both mutual funds and ETFs appeared to benefit from rallying equity markets in May.
Mutual fund assets totalled $1.58 trillion at the end of the month — up 2.5% from April. ETF assets totalled $211.4 billion — up 3.5% from the end of April.
IFIC’s data is adjusted to remove double-counting mutual funds that invest in other mutual funds, but the same adjustment is not made for ETFs.