Mutual funds, ETFs lose assets in March

ETFs and mutual funds saw their assets under management plummet in March, according to data from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC).

In a month plagued by market volatility, ETF assets fell by $20 billion, down 9.5% from February. Mutual fund assets fared worse, falling by $159.9 billion, down 10% from February.

Despite their plunge in asset value, ETFs recorded net sales of $3 billion in March. Equity ETFs led the pack with $4.2 billion in net sales, followed by balanced funds, which saw $124 million in net sales. Money market funds had $31 million in net sales.

Bond ETFs had $1.2 billion in redemptions and specialty ETFs had $139 million in redemptions.

IFIC’s data is not adjusted to remove double-counting ETFs that invest in other ETFs.

Mutual funds had net redemptions of $14.1 billion in March, led by $11 billion in balanced fund redemptions and $6.7 billion in bond fund redemptions. The only asset classes that didn’t suffer net redemptions were money market funds, which had net sales of $4.1 billion, and specialty funds, which had net sales of $181 million.

Staff

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