According to the latest data from Lipper FMI, both equity and money market funds saw redemptions, with money market funds alone responsible for redemptions of €14.7bn over the month, despite them normally being seen as a safe haven during more a turbulent market environment.
The redemptions in money market funds recorded by Lipper are in stark contrast to the global figures provided by EPFR Global for the first week in July which show an inflow of $33.5bn – a 78 week high for the money market sector, indicating perhaps a marked improvement in investor confidence since May.
The only major asset classes unaffected by the exodus were the mixed asset and bond categories, although both saw their net inflows drop to the lowest points since this time last year (bond +€5.6bn, mixed +€3.4bn).
In addition, investor reaction to the potential vulnerability of some regions was evident – European bond funds were redeemed heavily, with the European short-term bond sector seeing net redemptions of €2.3bn while emerging market bond sales also slowed on less positive regional news but still took €357m.
Overall the best selling sector for the month was German equities, with net sales of €6.5bn, despite the DAX falling by 2.8% during May. The top five funds in this sector were ETFs, possibly suggesting savvy investors buying when down, but also some short-selling distortions. The best seller was iShares DAX with inflows of €4bn, beating its homegrown competitor ETFLab DAX by €2.2bn.
