Insight Gisted Report May 2012

The current issue of Insight follows two main lines of inquiry. First, we look at whether the industry’s seasonality sales and redemption patterns have changed, and if so, how and why. The research continues this year’s Insight theme of “looking under the hood” of the industry’s metrics to determine the changing drivers of growth and sales activity. In our second line of inquiry, the results of the just-completed RRSP season are reviewed through the seasonality lens, with a further look at which companies, funds and asset classes benefitted the most during the period. The first quarter of the year has traditionally been a time of opportunity for the various providers of financial services and products. Yet the past five years have been witness to a wide range of industry results in the first quarter of the year. Since the 2008 market downturn, fund providers have been feeling the pinch of a clientele and an advisor sales force less inclined to invest in an environment of uncertainty about the direction of global markets.