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Retail investors put £2.4bn into funds in February

Investors placed £969m into global equities, and £638m into Asia equities, according to a study. Photo: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters
Investors placed £969m into global equities, and £638m into Asia equities, according to a study. Photo: Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters (Kai Pfaffenbach / reuters)

Retail investors placed £2.4bn ($3.3bn) into funds in February, with global and Asia equities being some of the most popular choices, new data revealed.

The Investment Association said savers placed £969m into global equities, and £638m into Asia equities.

Chris Cummings, CEO of the Investment Association, said “the preference for Asian equities continues as the opening up of Asian economies following the pandemic advances ahead of Europe and the US.”

Fixed income was the most popular asset class with £1.4bn in net retail sales, followed by mixed assets, which had £838m of inflows.

Equity funds experienced £296m of net retail sales but property funds experienced £99m in net retail outflows.

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Savers also looked for opportunities in smaller companies, the report said, with inflows of £252m into the ‘North American smaller companies’ category and and £142m into ‘UK smaller companies’.

The top best-selling sector for February 2021 was global, with net retail sales of £1.2bn.

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In second place was 'Asia Pacific excluding Japan', with net retail sales of £510m, followed by 'mixed investment 40-85% shares', which had net retail sales of £468m.

'Volatility managed' was fourth with net retail sales of £337m, and 'North American smaller companies' was fifth with net retail sales of £252m.

The worst-selling Investment Association sector in February was global bonds, with an outflow of £987m.

The report also said that gross retail sales for UK fund platforms totalled £15bn, representing a market share of 48.1%.

Europe funds saw net retail outflows of £228m, while UK funds saw net retail outflows of £1bn.

Tracker funds saw a net retail inflow of £993m and responsible investment funds saw a net retail inflow of £217m.

Last month, the Association reported that UK savers put almost £1bn a month on average into responsible investment funds in 2020, while net retail sales into responsible investment funds in January 2021 reached £1.2bn.

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