Meanwhile, ETF assets came in at $546.9 billion, down by $0.2 billion or 0.04% since February. ETF net sales were $13.9 billion in March.
Mutual fund sales
Once again, mutual fund net sales were concentrated in conservative fund categories.
Bond fund net sales amounted to $2.8 billion, down slightly from $3.1 billion in February.
Money market funds gathered $2.6 billion in net sales. This was up from $2.1 billion a month prior and the highest level of inflows for the category since March 2020, the report noted.
Specialty mutual funds reported net sales of $974 million, down from $2.5 billion in February.
These gains were partly offset by net redemptions among balanced, equity and long-term mutual funds.
Balanced funds reported net redemptions of $1.7 billion in March, down from $1.5 billion in net sales on a month-over-month basis.
Equity funds recorded $3.4 billion in net redemptions, down from just $195 million in net redemptions.
And long-term funds took a nosedive, with net redemptions of $1.4 billion, down from $6.9 billion in net sales in February.
ETF sales
Though market volatility and economic uncertainty were weighing on investors’ minds, ETFs recorded a major boost in net sales in March.
“In ETFs there was a minimal drop in assets due to strong net inflows, which reached an all-time high in March,” SIMA said.
At $6.4 billion in net sales, the equity fund category recorded the highest level of ETF net sales in the month, with more than 40% of that going to international equity ETFs, the report noted. That’s up from $4 billion in February.
Bond ETFs recorded $4.1 billion in net sales, up from $3.1 billion the month before.
Money market ETFs generated $2.1 billion in net sales, rising from $1.3 billion.
Balanced ETFs recorded net sales of $628 million, slightly down from $750 million a month earlier.
Net sales for specialty ETFs came in at $652 million, a slight drop from $753 million in February.