The Investment Association (IA) has today published figures on how savers invested in February.

The figures showed net retail sales were negative in February, with £156 million of outflows from UK authorised and recognised funds.

They also revealed Europe and UK equity funds continued to experience net retail outflows of £453m and £236m, respectively.

Global was the best-selling sector with £513m in net retail sales.

Chris Cummings, chief executive of the Investment Association, said: “Despite a slight improvement in investor confidence, February experienced the fifth consecutive month of net retail outflows.

“Savers turned towards Mixed Asset and Global equity funds to weather the ongoing economic and political uncertainty, giving European and UK equity funds, which saw continued outflows, the cold shoulder.”   

The below chart shows a comparison between this year and last year in terms of funds under management and net sales.

The five best-selling Investment Association sectors for February 2019 were:

1. Global was the best-selling sector with net retail sales of £513 million.


2. Global Bonds was second with net retail sales of £345 million.


3. Mixed Investment 40-85% Shares was next with net retail sales of £206 million.

4. Asia Pacific Excluding Japan followed with net retail sales of £155 million.

5. Global Emerging Markets was fifth with net retail sales of £153 million.

The worst-selling Investment Association sector in February 2019 was Specialist with an outflow of £357m.

Mixed Asset was the best-selling asset class with £385m in net retail sales, with Fixed Income was the second best-selling asset class with net retail sales of £77m.

The remaining asset classes experienced outflows.

Property saw net retail outflows of £45m, followed by Money Market with net retail outflows of £62m in February.

Funds classified as Other (which includes the Targeted Absolute Return, Volatility Managed, Protected and Unclassified sectors) saw net retail outflows of £65m, whilst Equity experienced outflows of £446m.

Elsewhere ethical funds experienced net retail inflows of £64m in February 2019.

Funds under management were £17bn at the end of February, representing a 1.4% share of industry funds under management.