Facts, Facts and More Facts: April 2012 Fund Industry Capsule

Mutual funds (including exchange-traded funds) ended April 2012 with $851 billion in assets, a decrease of $2.9 billion, or 0.3%, from the previous month due entirely to negative market effect. Net flows into long-term funds were positive, at $2.3 billion, however, April had the lowest monthly result year-to-date. Fixed income funds were the largest recipient of inflows, attracting $1.1 billion during the month. Balanced funds finished with positive net flows of $697 million while equity funds returned to the black, posting their best sales month of the year netting $473 million. The positive result of equity funds was driven by equity income and U.S. equity funds, which accounted for 135% of equity flows. International equity funds eked out a positive result, while core Canadian equity funds remained in net redemmption territory to the tune of $229 million.

From a product structure perspective, mutual funds of funds (MFoFs) generated $1.8 billion in net flows. Meanwhile, the ETF segment wrapped up April with $882 million in net creations, but just a $97 million increase in assets. The ETF asset base now sits at $49.1 billion. For more details see the upcoming May 2012 issue of Insight Advisory Service http://investoreconomics.com/issue/insight-advisory-service. Posted byAlexander Baker Alexander@iei.ca.