Equity AUM crosses Rs.10 lakh crore in December

The year 2017 ended with a positive note for the mutual fund industry as the total equity AUM including pure equity funds, balanced funds, ELSS and equity ETFs for December 2017 touched an all-time high of Rs.10.08 lakh crore.           

This is largely due to increased inflows in equity funds and mark to market gains. While the industry received inflows of Rs.24,239 crore in December. BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 reached new highs last month.

Among equity funds category, pure equity funds received the net inflows of Rs.14,921 crore. As a result, the assets under equity funds increased by Rs.33,884 crore to Rs.6.90 lakh crore in December.

However, compared to previous month, the inflows into equity funds have declined. Fund officials believe that many investors have redeemed their money when the markets touched new highs. In addition, many investors rebalanced their portfolio at the end of year to align with their asset allocation.

Experts, however, believe that the industry will continue to receive healthy inflows in equity funds due to stellar performance.  “The mutual fund industry has been receiving substantial equity inflows through SIPs and STPs. I believe that the trend will continue further. The marginal fall in the equity inflows is partially due to redemption,” said G. Pradeepkumar, CEO, Union Mutual Fund.

Balanced funds continue to attract money from investors as they mopped up net inflows of Rs.9,756 crore in December 2017, up 28% compared to the previous month.

Overall, the AUM of the MF industry declined to Rs.21.37 lakh crore in December from Rs.22.79 lakh crore. The AUM fell by 6.2% or Rs.1.41 lakh crore due to the net outflows in debt funds.

Experts say that corporate and institutions generally redeem their investments at the end of a quarter from  debt funds to pay advance tax.

Monthly AUM and net inflows/outflows for December 2017

Source: AMFI