Swiss fund market volume depressed by coronavirus

Basel, 20 April 2020 – In March 2020, the volume of assets placed in the investment funds covered by the statistics compiled by Swiss Fund Data AG and Morningstar stood at CHF 1,097.5 billion. This corresponds to a month-on-month decrease of CHF 108.5 billion or 9.9%. Net outflows totaled CHF 12.9 billion. The volume of assets entrusted by investors in Switzerland to the fund industry came to CHF 1,097,474 million in March 2020 (February 2020: CHF 1,205,974 million). “As was to be expected, the uncertainty on the financial markets as a result of the coronavirus crisis led to sharp falls on all leading exchanges in March, causing a decline in volumes on the Swiss fund market. The fact that more money was taken out of funds – especially bond funds – during the month than was put in further exacerbated this trend. Equity and mixed-asset funds also recorded substantial outflows,” said Markus Fuchs, Managing Director of the Swiss Funds & Asset Management Association SFAMA. By comparison, the figures for selected indexes in March 2020 were as follows (February in brackets): Dow Jones -13.74% (-10.07%), S&P 500 -12.51% (-8.41%), EURO STOXX 50 -16.30% (-8.55%), SMI -5.28% (-7.50%), SBI -5.12% (0.74%), and Bloomberg Barclays US Aggregate Bond Index -0.59% (1.80%). The CHF gained 0.47% against the EUR and 0.45% against the USD. Net outflows in March 2020 totaled CHF 12.9 billion. Bond funds came off worst with outflows of CHF 7.7 billion, followed by equity funds with CHF 2.8 billion and mixed-asset funds with CHF 1.9 billion. Only two fund categories posted inflows, meanwhile, and these were small: CHF 331.5 million for commodity funds and CHF 7.2 million for real estate funds. There were no changes in the ranking of the most popular asset classes: equity funds 38.57%, bond funds 33.49%, mixed-asset funds 11.23%, and money market funds 9.50%.