Mutual fund and exchange traded fund (ETF) sales both came in higher in December 2020, relative to November 2020 figures, and both surged ahead during the year, outstripping 2019 sales figures by a wide margin, according to the most recent investment fund statistics from the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC).
Mutual fund sales in fact almost doubled in 2020, relative to 2019 sales figures, but even those were outstripped by ETF sales during the year. In 2020, mutual fund sales reached almost $31-billion, up from the almost $17-billion in sales the mutual fund industry turned in in 2019. ETFs beat mutual fund sales, with $41.5-billion in net sales for the year in 2020, up from $28-billion in 2019.
As for December’s sales numbers, mutual funds sold $7.3-billion during the month, up from $6.2-billion in November 2020, as investors withdrew from money market funds, which saw net redemptions of $1.2-billion during the month, to invest in balanced, equity and bond funds. These categories saw net sales of $3-billion, $3.4-billion and $1.7-billion, respectively. All told, mutual fund net assets reached $1.78-trillion in December 2020, up from $1.75-trillion the month before.
ETF sales, meanwhile, reached just $3.9-billion in December, up from $3.2-billion in November 2020. Equity ETFs lead the way, bringing in more than $1.9-billion during the month. Total ETF assets were $257.3-billion at the end of December 2020, up from $250.1-billion at the end of November 2020.
