Most major asset classes posted net sales in August, new stats reveal
Canadian investment funds continued to attract strong sales in August, albeit at a slightly softer pace than in July.
New data from the Securities and Investment Management Association (SIMA) shows that mutual funds posted another month of net sales as they have done every month this year except April, while ETF net sales are now close to the total for 2024 with four months of data to go.
Mutual fund net sales of $3.0 billion were down from $4.7 billion in July and were led by bonds at $2.2 billion (down from $3.5 billion in July) while net sales also lower for specialty ($610 million vs. $838 million in July) and money market funds ($25 million vs. $399 million). The exception was balanced funds which posted $616 million in net sales last month compared to just $50 million in July.
Equity mutual funds were the only major asset class to record net redemptions in August with the $435 million total deepening from the $230 million net redemptions of July.
Mutual fund assets totalled $2.4 trillion at the end of August, up by $35.9 billion or 1.5% since July and year-to-date, mutual fund assets have grown by 7.6% – an increase of $170.5 billion.
Meanwhile, ETF net sales of $7.7 billion in August were down from $10.3 billion in July, but that brings year-to-date net sales to $73.7 billion, a significant increase from the $41.5 billion of the same period of 2024 and close to outperforming the full-year total for last year of almost $75 billion.
August’s ETF net sales were led by equities at $3.7 billion (down from $6.5 billion in July) followed by bonds at $1.9 billion (up from $1.5 billion), specialty at $1.3 billion which is roughly in line with the previous month and balanced at $846 million (down from $1.1 billion).
Money market ETFs continued in negative territory with net redemptions of $23 million, although this was down from $222 million in July.
ETF assets totalled $630.2 billion at the end of August, up by $18.8 billion or 3.1% since July. Year-to-date, assets have grown by 21.8%, an increase of $112.7 billion.
