Total sales of mutual funds (MFs) across all schemes declined to Rs 16.17 lakh crore in December 2017 from Rs 19.11 lakh crore in November 2017, a sharp 15.4% reduction. While December is usually a relatively lean month, last year the fund inflows remained steady, perhaps due to the impact of demonetisation. The total mutual fund sales across all schemes increased to Rs 14.14 lakh crore in December 2016 from Rs 13.99 lakh crore in November 2016, recording a month-on-month growth of 1.04%. Annual growth this financial year, though, has remained robust with mutual fund sales growing 22% in the April-December period, over the corresponding period of the previous year. Sales in December 2017, too, recorded a 14.37% growth over the corresponding month the year ago. A fund manager advised against reading too much into the monthly figures as investors may, at times, invest only for a few days and then withdraw.
“If someone invests in the last week of a month and then sells the next month, even though it will look like large money, the money would not remain in the industry,” said the fund manager. In the current fiscal, the highest year-on-year growth was recorded in April, when sales grew 45.2%, while June recorded the poorest growth of 2%.
