Mutual fund assets neared $2.5T, ETF sales surpassed 2024 record in September: SIMA

Assets and net sales shot up among both mutual funds and ETFs in September, a report from the Securities and Investment Management Association (SIMA) shows.

Released Wednesday, the report said mutual fund assets reached $2.489 trillion at the end of September. They grew by 3.1% or $75.6 billion from the previous month. Since the start of the year, mutual fund assets have increased by 11% or $246.2 billion.

Mutual funds also recorded a fifth consecutive month of positive net sales, gathering $3.8 billion in September. The sales were dominated by bond mutual funds, which brought in $2.2 billion in the month.

Balanced mutual funds posted $1 billion in net sales, followed by specialty mutual funds at $670 million and equity mutual funds at $49 million.

Money-market mutual funds were in negative sales territory, suffering $228 million in net redemptions.

Meanwhile, “ETF assets had their largest monthly increase of the year,” the report noted. They totalled $663.8 billion at the end of September, up by 5.3% or $33.7 billion on a month-over-month basis. Year to date, ETF assets have increased by 22.7% or $146.3 billion.

ETFs enjoyed $12.4 billion in net sales in September, with all fund categories recording positive net sales. Year-to-date ETF net sales have surpassed net sales for all of 2024, and set a new record.

Equity ETFs took in $5.7 billion, followed by bond ETFs at $3.7 billion, specialty ETFs at $1.7 billion, balanced ETFs at $1 billion and money-market ETFs at $236 million.