TORONTO - Canada's mutual fund industry appeared to finish the year on a positive note, with preliminary figures indicating an overall increase in asset value in December compared with November as well as showing a major increase for the year as a whole.
The Investment Funds Institute of Canada said Tuesday it estimated that the net assets of the Canadian mutual fund industry were between $591.9 billion and $596.9 at the end of December.
The figures, based on a sample of preliminary data from some of its members, are up about 1.3 per cent from November's total of $586.3 billion.
"Since the beginning of the year, mutual fund investors have seen their . . . account balances increase by $87.4 billion or 17.2 per cent," said Pat Dunwoody, IFIC's vice-president of member services and communications.
Since the low at the end of February, balances have increased by $117.5 billion, she said.
"From a sales perspective in 2009, we have seen a complete turnaround of what happened in 2008," Dunwoody added. "Flows into long-term funds were close to $17.4 billion compared to the $14.4 billion that flowed out in 2008."
However, it was unclear if net sales exceeded redemptions in December. The IFIC estimate was between a minus $81.1 million and a plus $418.8 million for the month.
The preliminary figures from IFIC came after Morningstar Canada also reported earlier in the day that equity and balanced funds had recovered a large portion of the heavy losses they incurred in 2008.
All but one of the Morningstar Canada fund indexes that track either equity or balanced fund categories had positive returns for the year.
However, none of the equity fund indexes have recovered beyond their 2008 level, Morningstar said in a summary of fund performance.
The best performer for the year was the precious metals equity fund index with a gain of 57.9 per cent.
Assets of Canadian mutual fund industry up 1.3 per cent from November
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Published on
January 6, 2010
- Published on February 25, 2010
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