The Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC) has released its monthly statistics for December. Sales were down in almost all areas, with stand alone funds realizing significant redemptions.

Total net sales for all fund types came to $1.27 billion in December; this represents a 66% decline compared to the net sales of $3.76 billion recorded in November. Stand-alone mutual funds did particularly poorly in the last month of 2015 and saw net redemptions of $1.87 billion. All of the growth took place in the fund-of-funds category, which posted net sales of $3.14 billion.

IFIC notes that net sales for long-term funds came to $1.07 billion in December; a decline of 77% from the $3.83 billion recorded in November. Money market funds had net sales of $200 million, up from the $67 million in net redemptions in November but still down $400 million year to date.

Broken down by category for December, balanced funds’ net sales totalled $1.76 billion compared to net sales of $2.99 billion in November while bond funds saw net redemptions of $684 million compared to net sales of $744 million in the previous month. As for equity funds, they also experienced net redemptions, losing $38 million compared to net sales of $8.7 million in November.

Although total mutual fund assets under management for December 2015 decreased by $3 billion or 0.24% compared to the previous month, IFIC points out that they were still up by $90.1 billion or 7.3% compared to December 2014. Year-to-date, industry assets under management increased by $90.1 billion or 7.3%.