We’ll win no prizes for saying investors are nervous, or that money is moving. But in any market environment, especially one characterised by change, there are winners and losers. Citywire Amplify has taken a look at the groups taking in and losing the most money over the first six months of 2022.

Reflecting Amplify’s audience around the world, our list is also global.

Below you will find two sets of results, based on Morningstar data: one with ETFs included and one without. ETFs reflect more short-term plays and the same big ETF houses often dominate flows lists such as these.

These figures are not limited to retail flows. They include institutional too, but not feeder funds or funds of funds.

Amplify view

Although there are some ESG names in the top 10 funds of leading groups, they are not in significant numbers. This conforms to Morningstar data for Q2, which saw net new money to sustainable strategies fall 62% to $32bn. That said, HSBC took in $20bn to sustainable strategies over H1, Charles Schwab $14bn and CaixaBank $7bn. HSBC’s biggest inflow was to its Sterling ESG Liquidity fund, with $221m.

Money market flows

Instead, money market funds have driven some groups right up the inflow leaderboards.

HSBC’s numbers have been lifted by money market funds: its best-seller, the US Government Money Market fund, raked in $17bn. Seven of Charles Schwab’s top 10 funds are in money markets – its Municipal Money fund took in $5.3bn.

Rising rates have boosted returns from these products, and earnings for asset managers that previously may have been covering costs themselves. Investors park money in cash for strategic reasons or as a holding place while they deal with market rotation – at least in theory.

But the money market flows are not evenly distributed. Over the first half, these funds had outflows of $301bn, according to a Morningstar report.

As a winner when it comes to money market flows, HSBC told Amplify that market positioning and brand has been important to winning that new money.

JP Morgan was one business that saw big redemptions from some of its money market funds, with $26bn taken from its funds in the USD Money Market short-term sector. Most of that appears to have been lost before the second quarter, with a reversal in fortunes coming more recently ($2bn inflow over Q2).

Alternatives

When you see groups hit with redemptions across asset classes, you can see why a strategic shift into alternatives is tempting. Take the example of Franklin Templeton, hit with redemptions from several bond funds this half. Its biggest losers were the Western Asset Core and Core Plus Bond funds, with a combined $5.5bn outflow.

Franklin also owns alternative asset managers and is buying more. Lexington Partners (specialist in secondary private equity and co-investments) was bought in April this year and contributed to a second-quarter net inflow. Flows will soon also come from Alcentra, a $38bn alternative credit manager, Franklin said. (As it happens, Franklin took in almost $4bn to funds in the USD money market – short-term sector.)

Group overlap

Across all the groups in our top 10 for inflows, Global Large Cap Blend Equities was one of the sectors taking in the most money.

And for groups in our outflow list, bonds – in particular, short-term bonds – and Global Large Cap Growth equities, were common sectors taking the biggest hits.

Amplify view

Spot the difference ETFs can make. Inflows have been driven by ETFs over the first half, to the tune of $402bn – Equity ETFs took in the lion’s share of that with $262bn – while actively managed mutual funds have suffered.

That may make some active fund sales departments uneasy – was money flowing from their equity products into ETFs?

Active equity lost $137.8bn. The biggest single active equity sector losses came from large-cap growth, a $56bn outflow.

Among ETF sectors, money went into global large value ($58bn) and large blend ($45bn).

Did investors decide to throw out the active baby with the growth bath water?

Not quite, $61.5bn went into large cap blend equity funds.

The conclusion to draw could be that investors collectively split the difference as they moved styles.

Where ETFs were hurt was in thematics. Most money came out of financials ($12.4bn) and $7.3 flowed out from consumer cyclicals.

But $23bn also went into a category which Morningstar labels simple ‘miscellaneous’. For example, $15bn of that sum went into inverse leveraged equity-trading strategies. The ETF with the single biggest inflow in this sector was the ProShares UltraPro QQQ fund, which attracted $8.7bn. Second was the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X shares fund, with $5.3bn of net inflows.

Group-wise, iShares rules the roost, while Vanguard’s ETF business turned a $40bn+ outflow from its open-ended funds into a healthy first half.