RRSP season "ended with a whimper," according to a UBS report that showed March mutual fund inflows rebounding strongly from a year earlier but still at less than half the average for the month recorded over the past fifteen years.
Nevertheless, mutual fund assets under management rose to $618 billion in March as Canadians channelled money into balanced funds and fixed income investments, the Investment Funds Institute of Canada reported yesterday.
It was the first time since August 2008 that assets have been above the $600-million mark, the industry group said.
Net inflows for March totalled $1.64 billion, after investors purchased $3.96 billion in long-term funds and sold $2.32 billion in money market funds.
It was the twelfth consecutive month of rising inflows for long-term mutual funds, according to UBS Investment Research strategist George Vasic.
Yet as he wrote in a research note: "This is a significant improvement over the $520 million inflow a year earlier, but still only 46 per cent of the 1995-2009 average."
Balanced funds continued to be Canadians "asset class of choice" with net sales of $3.4 billion, Vasic said.
Conversely, Canadians also continued to pull out of money market funds, posting net redemptions of $2.321 billion as the fears sown by the financial crisis of 2008 continued to fade.
Equity fund redemptions totalled $502.6 million, including $81 million in redemptions of domestic equity funds.
Bond funds, meanwhile, attracted $1.04 billion in net inflows while balanced funds attracted $3.394 billion in net inflows.
