Facts, Facts and More Facts: October 2012 Fund Industry Wrap-up

Assets of long-term mutual funds (including exchange-traded funds) grew marginally in October, expanding by 0.9%. October’s net flow result mirrored the prior month’s level, with $1.5 billion flowing into long-term funds.

Extending the asset directionality pattern of recent years, income-oriented fund classes dominated net flows. Fixed income, income balanced and equity income funds attracted a combined $3.8 billion in sales, of which nearly 60% went into fixed income funds. The broad core equity category ended the month in net redemptions.

Pre-assembled advice solutions more than doubled the net intake of stand-alone funds. Mutual funds of funds (MFoFs) recorded net flows of $1.8 billion compared to $736 million for stand-alone funds.

ETF assets rose 1.3%, or $685 million, to end October at $54.4 billion. Uptrending equity markets contributed to the expansion, accounting for slightly over half of this gain. Meanwhile, net creations of $289 million were driven primarily by fixed income funds. For more details, please see the upcoming issue of the Insight Advisory Service http://investoreconomics.com/issue/insight-advisory-service. Posted by Sandeep Gosal Sandeep@iei.ca.