Retail investors return to funds in November

Risk appetite appears to tick back up; institutions withdraw huge sum from Money Markets.

Christopher J. Traulsen, CFA | 24-12-08 | E-mail Article

Retail investors added a net £1.04bn to UK domiciled funds in the month of November according to just released data from the local fund trade group. Institutions, on the other hand pulled a net £1.3bn out of UK domiciled funds in the period. One clear trend, however was that with the money they kept in funds, investors of both stripes appear willing to increase their exposures to riskier assets.

In the equity realm, for example, funds pulled in a net of £1bn. Of that, £567mn went to UK All Companies, with £269mn attributable to retail investors and £327.9mn to institutions. Other top-selling sectors included UK Equity Income (£252.5mn in net sales), Global Growth (£184.4mn in net sales), and Asia Pacific excluding Japan (£112mn in net sales). Even Global Emerging Markets pulled in £81.8mn, of which £16.7mn came from retail investors. Europe ex-UK experienced the large net outflow, with £135.9mn in net outflows in November. In one notable divergence, retail investors pulled £101mn out of the Specialist sector, whilst institutions added a net £46.6mn to the group. Property funds saw net outflows of £140mn from retail investors.

Investors also added substantially to bond funds, putting in a net £434mn in the month. By far the best selling sector was £ Corporate Bond, with net inflows of £459mn, of which £339mn came from retail investors. In contrast, UK Gilts had a net outflow of £151mn. The pattern suggests that investors might finally be seeing value in the extremely wide spreads in the beaten-down corporate arena. There may also be a structural element of rebalancing as year-end approaches.

One other point of note was a massive net outflow of institutional money from the UK Money Market sector. In all, institutions pulled £1.75bn from money market funds in the November, far more than in any month during the credit crisis (the next largest institutional outflow was in June 2008, at £657.8mn).

Christopher J. Traulsen, CFA, is Director of Pan-European and Asian Research for Morningstar Europe. He would like to hear from you, but cannot give financial advice. You can contact the author via this feedback form.
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