According to the Lipper funds flow data for May, European investors poured €35.3bn into long term mutual funds in May, with €18.6bn of those flows heading into bond funds.
The second best category, were mixed-asset products with €9.7bn of inflows. Equity funds brought up the rear with €6.2bn.
Indeed, according to the group, the only product type that saw net outflows in May were commodity funds, which saw €0.4bn in redemptions.
Within the long-term fund space, Lipper said: “Asset allocation products (+ €6.1bn) were once again the best-selling asset class, followed by emerging market bonds (+€3.4bn) and equities emerging markets (+€2.8bn) as well as mixed-asset conservative funds (+€2.8bn) and bonds EUR funds (+ €2.1bn).
According to EFAMA, net sales of UCITS remained firm in May, totalling €43bn, but fell month-month-on-month from April’s €62bn figure.
This decline, the group said: “can be attributed to the reduction in net sales of long-term funds, coupled with increased net outflows from money market funds.”
While bond fund sales were down month-on-month, net sales of bond funds remained high at €20bn in May. (April: €27bn) Especially when compared to equities which saw net fund sales halve to €27bn. Balanced funds attracted net inflows of 17bn, down from €20bn in April.
Bernard Delbecque, director of economics and research at EFAMA commented: “Net sales of long-term UCITS remained at elevated levels in May as expectations mounted of interest rate cuts by the ECB to stimulate growth and head off deflation.”
