This happened despite the shaky nature of equity markets over the month. Investors took advantage of more attractive valuations following the market correction in late August. European equity funds took in a net €4.1bn over the month, more than double the net inflows registered in August. The inflows were concentrated in large cap funds, with small- and midcap funds taking in only a few hundred million euros.
EIE predicts it all
The inflow figures correspond neatly with Expert Investor Europe’s investment sentiment data, which have been showing European equities as the most popular asset class across Europe for the past year or so. More than half of Europe’s fund selectors plan to increase their allocation to European stocks in the next 12 months, according to our freshest data. This number is likely to be even higher now, as they were collected before Mario Draghi made his ultra-dovish comments about QE last week.
Multi-asset popularity eases
For the first time since September 2013, multi-asset funds did not top the inflows list. Net flows remained comfortably in positive territory at €3.9bn, but inflows were the lowest since October 2012. Alternative Ucits multi-strategy funds, which tend to show a strong correlation with long-only multi-asset funds, also saw a slowdown in inflows to the lowest level since August last year.
Click here to see a full overview of European fund flows over the past year.
