Month over month mutual fund sales slow
For the first time since mid-2008, Canada’s mutual fund operators had more than $600 billion of assets under their care at the end of March, following another month of net sales to investors.
Net sales – what’s left after subtracting redemptions by investors when they cash in their fund units – totaled $1.64 billion last month. That’s down from $3.1 billion in February when Canadians were making contributions to registered retirement plans before the March 1 deadline.
The value of total assets managed by the fund companies that are tracked by the Investment Funds Institute of Canada rose to $618 billion last month, up $120.6 billion from March 2009 at the low-point of the 2008-09 market meltdown.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index, the main benchmark of Canada’s largest stock market, hit its all-time peak of about 15,000 in June 2008. IFIC said in its monthly report that mutual fund assets in Canada haven’t been above $600 billion since August 2008.
