ETF assets flat, mutual fund assets fell in February

Mutual fund assets were just shy of $2 trillion at the end of February, falling by $24.6 billion or 1.2% compared to the previous month, according to the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC).

Balanced funds continued to have the greatest amount of assets, followed by equity and then bond funds. Assets fell slightly in all three categories month over month, though year over year, balanced funds assets rose by 11% and equity fund assets rose by 16.4%. Total mutual fund assets rose by 10.3% year over year.

Meanwhile, ETF assets were $317.1 billion, rising by $200 million or 0.1% from January. (This is the first monthly report in which IFIC has removed the double counting that occurs when an ETF holds units of other Canadian ETFs, making year-over-year comparisons imperfect.)

Equity funds continued to lead ETFs by assets under management, but assets remained at $206.5 billion in February (vs. $206.4 billion the previous month). Assets were mostly flat month over month in the other categories as well.

Mutual funds had net sales of $9.9 billion in February, rising by 37.9% from January but falling by 43.8% from the previous February. Net sales continued to be highest among balanced funds, followed by equity funds.

ETFs recorded net sales of $4.0 billion in February, falling by 12.1% month over month. Bond ETFs continued to be in net redemptions in the month, and net sales of equity ETFs fell by 27.8% to $3.1 billion from January.

However, money market ETF net sales nearly tripled month over month to reach $411 million in February, and specialty funds net sales increased by 3.5 times to $308 million.

Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.