Facts, Facts and More Facts: 2012 Mutual Fund Load Landscape

The load structure trends reported in the March issue of Insight have persisted so far this year. The popularity of bank-sponsored mutual funds continued to inch up the industry weighting in no load funds. In the year-to-date through September 2012, no load funds accounted for 71% of gross sales while representing 54% of assets. Among load funds, front-end load was the best-selling structure with $200 billion in gross sales during the period. Back-end load (or deferred sales charge), once the dominant option among load funds, has been in decline in recent years, with the category’s year-to-date redemption tally close to doubling the volume of its gross sales intake. Low-load funds (deferred sales charge options with a two- or three-year amortization schedule) continued to be a popular option, accounting for 11% of load fund assets at the end of the third quarter and 20% of gross sales in 2012. For more details, please see the Insight Advisory Service http://investoreconomics.com/issue/insight-advisory-service. Posted by Bonnie Ho Bonnie@iei.ca.