February’s market sell-off led to the first net outflows from equity funds in the UK since January 2017, with £136m being taken out of funds according to data from the Investment Association.

The worse performing sector was UK equity, which saw investors redeem £510m in February. Global and North American equity funds also saw outflows, investors taking out £66m and £31m respectively.

The old adage of ‘equities down, bonds up’ appeared to be ignored as there was correlation between the two asset classes. Fixed income funds also experienced net outflows of £235m in February with both sovereign and corporate bond funds losing investor confidence.

Other figures from Thomson Reuters’ Lipper revealed that in February BlackRock sold the most equity funds across Europe as a whole, bringing in €4.2bn during the month. The asset manager also sold the second most bond funds behind investment bank UBS, which took in €3.2bn.

US equity funds were the most popular with sales of €4bn and the best-selling fund across Europe for February was Sarasin Endowments (GB0003119400), a multi-asset product launched that month. (DS)

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