February trust sales soar tenfold
A growing appetite for guaranteed funds among investors helped to lift net unit trust sales by more than 10 times in February, according to the Hong Kong Investment Funds Association.
Net inflows for all fund categories were US$219.38 million, up from US$19.58 million in the previous month.
In February, 59 per cent was accounted for by guaranteed funds, which attracted net inflows of US$130.13 million.
This was the highest figure recorded for the sector since it was incorporated into the association sales table in October.
In January, guaranteed funds recorded net outflows of US$190,000.
The second-largest source of net inflows for February came from European funds, which drew US$33.5 million, or 15 per cent of net fund sales.
This represented a 17 per cent increase from a month earlier.
An improvement was also seen in bond funds, which recorded net inflows of US$4.1 million compared with outflows of US$54.17 million in January.
Of the six sectors of equity funds covering the region, four suffered a decline in gross sales.
The steepest drop was seen in Japanese equity funds, where gross inflows fell 45 per cent from January to US$19.88 million.
However, gross inflows into Hong Kong equity funds surged 79 per cent to US$42.53 million. Net inflows also increased to US$19.87 million, up from US$1.77 million in January.
All other regional funds suffered a drop in net sales. In February, the six Asian sectors recorded net outflows of US$3.34 million, against inflows of US$36.36 million in the previous month.
