As of the end of May 2011, the total volume of assets in the investment funds covered by the statistics compiled by Swiss Fund Data AG and Lipper stood at CHF 653.6 billion, with Swiss funds for institutional investors accounting for some CHF 231.2 billion of this figure.
Due to the falling prices on the markets, assets under management depreciated in all asset classes in the month under review, dropping a total of CHF 11.8 billion month-on-month. Despite the gloomier outlooks, the Swiss fund market enjoyed net inflows totalling some CHF 876.2 million.
What was striking last month was the significant inflows of new money into higher-yielding bond funds – in particular those focusing on emerging market and high-yield bonds – this coming as the result of interest rates still being at record lows. Inflows into bond funds totalled some CHF1.3 billion.
With regard to outflows, the stand-outs were USD money market funds (due to the ongoing depreciation of the USD) and commodity funds (due to the slump in precious metals prices at the beginning of the month). Money market funds and other funds showed outflows of CHF 167.3 million and CHF 101.5 million respectively.
