Mutual fund, ETF sales turned negative in June: IFIC

While dropping markets accounted for the vast majority of the decline in assets, mutual funds also recorded $10.4 billion in net redemptions — leaving the industry in negative sales territory for 2022.

In the first half, mutual funds recorded $3.5 billion in net redemptions. This marked a sharp drop from the $72.5 billion in net sales for the same period last year.

Long-term funds suffered $5.8 billion in net redemptions in the first half, led by investors pulling $6.3 billion from bond funds and almost $4.0 billion from balanced funds.

Despite the turmoil in equity markets, equity funds remained in positive territory, with $3.5 billion in first half net sales.

In June, though, all of the major asset classes were in net redemptions.

Balanced funds recorded $4.98 billion in monthly redemptions, followed by equity funds ($3.44 billion) and bond funds ($3.35 billion).

IFIC reported that ETFs also were in net redemptions in June, with assets falling even more sharply — total AUM dropped by $22.0 billion, or 7.1%, in the month to $288.9 billion.

Long-term funds saw $1.3 billion in redemptions, driven by $2.25 billion in redemptions from equity ETFs.

The specialty category was also in redemptions for June ($609 million), but the bond and balanced fund categories stayed positive, with $1.5 billion and $23 million in monthly net sales, respectively.

For the first half, ETF sales are still in positive territory. Overall net sales topped $16 billion, which was about half of the total a year ago ($32.7 billion).

Notwithstanding the equity category’s net redemptions in June, it remained the leading source of ETF sales in the first half, with $9.5 billion in net sales.

Bond ETFs are running a distant second, with $2.8 billion in first half net sales, and balanced funds recorded almost $1.2 billion in net sales through the first half.