A one-off net subscription into a BlackRock US equity tracker fund has helped keep UK fund flows positive in October, according to data from Morningstar.
Net flows into UK funds reached a total of £7 billion (€7.9 billion) for the month, but this was buoyed by the £7.5 billion inflow into BlackRock’s tracker strategy, the firm said.
UK equities remained firmly out of favour in October, as investors continued to withdraw cash from funds investing in the asset class.
A net total of £1.6 billion (€1.8 billion) was withdrawn from UK equity funds throughout the course of the month.
Alternative funds also continued to experience outflows, continuing a trend seen every month for three years. Over this period, the total outflow for UK-domiciled alternative funds has nearly reached £34 billion, according to Morningstar. For October, net outflows from alternatives totalled £845 million.
Elsewhere, UK bonds strategies enjoyed net inflows of £633 million, while allocation funds saw £1.7 billion of new cash.
Bhavik Parekh, associate analyst, manager research, said: “Given its scale and wide variety of its client base, BlackRock occasionally sees months in which there is a large inflow into a single or small handful of funds. October was an example of this, and between two funds there was a net inflow of £13.1 billion. The last time this happened was in June 2017 when there was a net inflow of £16.6 billion.”
© 2020 funds europe
