October proved a difficult month for the European fund industry as a dramatic slowdown in inflows that began in September continued, with equities sustaining significant outflows.
Findings from fund data firm Lipper reveal a net outflow of €9.3 billion from equity funds in October. Global equities, European mid- and small-cap equities and emerging markets equities contributed to the outflow, however North America equities performed well with inflows of €4.4 billion. Meanwhile, asset allocation products attracted a net €3.8 billion.
Overall, the European mutual funds industry still managed to maintain a positive net inflow of €0.4 billion into long-term mutual funds in the month.
While September’s Lipper report predicted bond funds would be the most popular asset class in October, mixed-asset products actually did best with €7.7 billion of inflows. Bond funds followed with €4.4 billion and the alternative/hedge products asset class managed to draw in €0.2 billion.
Opposite to long-term products, money market funds enjoyed significant success in October, with a net inflow of €27.4 billion.
BlackRock was the bestselling group of long-term funds for the month, followed by Vanguard and Pioneer. BlackRock also topped the list in terms of assets growth, and had the top selling fund in October, the iShares Core S&P 500 Ucits exchange-traded fund (ETF).
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