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Global Fund Flows - All Eyes On Bonds - Calastone
Global Fund Flows - All Eyes On Bonds - Calastone
Global Fund Flows - All Eyes On Bonds - Calastone
For asset managers, understanding what investors want to own and how they
behave is a crucial aid to the development of new products and the effective
marketing of the funds already being managed. Calastone sits right at the heart
of the system, handling tens of millions of transactions every month. Our data
provides a unique insight on how funds are flowing, right down to asset level on a
daily basis. That means we can see the big long-term trends in investor
behaviour, the medium-term fluctuations that take place across an economic or
market cycle, and the immediate response investors make to newsflow on a daily
basis. Calastone’s network is growing rapidly, adding new territories all the time.
Our international perspective means we can measure the extent to which a trend
reflects local factors or is part of a wider global movement.
For investors, knowing what everyone else is up to can be helpful too. Should I
plough my own furrow or sit and wait?
OVERVIEW
Fund Values
Mutual funds recouped all of 2022’s lost assets under management in 2023
The value of mutual funds rose $10.7 trillion, returning to 2021’s record $70.9
trillion
Funds in the US saw the biggest increase reflecting the home-market bias of
US investors
In local currency, Asian and Australian investors benefited from weak
exchange rates
Trading Volumes
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Half the volume was in equity funds, with fixed income accounting for one
quarter
Volatile markets typically deter transactions
Equity volumes picked up later in 2023 as markets calmed
Bond market volatility was lower in 2023, despite August to October’s yield
surge, and volumes therefore rose
Money-market activity rose to record levels as investors sought high-yielding
homes for surplus cash
Changes in buying activity are also the key driver of net fund flows, not
changes in selling
Net flows are a very small difference between large volumes of buying and
selling – e.g. net inflow to equities is equal to just 2% of total transaction value
in last 5 years
Fixed Income
Investors are keen to lock into high yields – net inflows totalled $22.2bn in
2023, driven by a one quarter increase in buy orders against no change in
appetite to sell
Bond markets saw strong gains towards the end of the year after a turbulent
few months
Investors everywhere were more positive on bond funds – Asian investors saw
the biggest reversal of sentiment, switching from strong net selling in 2022 to
strong net buying in 2023
Equities
Investors withdrew $7.1bn of capital from equity funds in 2023, and were
especially negative from May onwards, but the outflow for the year was just
over half the level seen in 2022
UK and European investors were the most negative in 2023
Outflows from equity funds across Asia were more modest
Active v Index
Passive funds were back in fashion in 2023, attracting net inflows of $20.1bn
while active funds shed $27.2bn
ESG Backlash
After a three-year ESG boom with $51.2bn of inflows (6x more than non-ESG
funds), ESG funds shed $10.2bn in 2023
European investors turned away from ESG first, but we now see the trend
across our global network
Viewpoint
The global economy has consistently surprised on the upside in the last couple
of years but the outlook is very unclear
The prospects for asset prices are not the only driver of investors’ returns and
asset managers’ profits
Complex, fragmented supply chains and layers of cost eat into profit margins
and investor capital – cost is the biggest destroyer of value in the long-term
Newer generations of investors want a seamless digital experience, low cost
and rapid settlement
Calastone’s technology is a major driver of lower costs – helping asset
managers and investors to profit
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FUND VALUES
Mutual funds recouped all 2022’s lost assets under management in 2023
Over the last year, the biggest recovery has been in the US where assets have
jumped by 21%, reflecting the greater exposure of US investors to their strongly-
performing domestic market. Across Europe, mutual fund values are 16% higher
and 14% in the UK.
Weaker Asian exchange rates mean fund assets across the region rose more
slowly in US dollar terms – up 12% – but that same currency weakness means
local investors would have felt this differently. Mutual fund assets in Australia and
China jumped by 18% in local currency terms, while those in Japan soared by
more than a quarter.
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[1] Source, ICI Global Q3 2023 figures adjusted for Q4 market movements
TRADING VOLUMES
The volume of funds traded is a function both of asset values in general and of
decisions by investors to add to their holdings or withdraw capital. Investors were
very active in 2023, trading $1.07 trillion across the three big asset classes of
equities, fixed income and mixed assets, an increase of 10.0% compared to 2022.
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Equity funds accounted for over half the total volume with bonds and mixed
assets at just over a quarter and a fifth respectively. Bond market values were
lower in 2023 on average than 2022, while the average value of equity markets
was roughly the same year-on-year, though they saw a lot less volatility than in
2022. The contribution asset prices made to total volumes in 2023 was therefore
mildly negative. Growth in underlying investor trading activity was
consequentially higher than the simple value comparison suggests.
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Equity funds rose relatively slowly in most parts of our network – between 4%
and 6% – except in Singapore and Taiwan where they fell.
Activity in money market funds reached a record level as investors chased the
high yields and low volatility these instruments offer, particularly given how slow
banks have been to raise deposit interest rates.
Mixed asset funds mainly comprise equities and bonds, so they tend to follow the
wider market trends. Among other asset classes, property funds have seen
investors lose interest in recent years – their open-ended structure makes them
unsuited for illiquid property investment while the economic and interest-rate
environment has diminished the attractiveness of the asset class. Elsewhere,
alternatives, a fund asset class mainly comprised of hedge funds, saw volumes
rise. But despite reports in the media that investors have become more positive
on hedge funds, which should indeed do better now that markets are no longer
becalmed by years of near-zero interest rates, our data shows that investors
increasingly want to exit this more esoteric asset class.
Fund transaction volumes are not two-way trades like tradable securities
Trading volumes in funds are not the same as in underlying assets on capital
markets. For every buy order in, say, China Mobile shares that is executed on an
exchange, there has to be a matching sell order from another investor. This is not
the case with funds. A surplus of buy orders means more units are created,
funnelling cash to a portfolio manager to buy assets. Unlike stocks and bonds,
that means volumes of fund units can rise because of increased buying pressure
alone or because of selling pressure, or a combination both.
Calastone’s fund flow data clearly shows that changes in buying activity rather
than selling are the key driver of volumes in the short term.
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Net fund flows are driven more by changes in appetite to buy rather than
sell
In 2022, when the global bear market began to bite, sell orders did not rise as
one might reasonably expect, yet there were nevertheless significant outflows of
capital from equity funds ($13.3bn) – following especially strong inflows in 2021.
In fact, the value of sell orders in equity funds fell by 4.3%, or $12.7bn compared
to 2021, but the value of buy orders fell even more – down by 23% or $78.7bn.
Some of this reflected lower asset values of course, but the primary driver was
order volume.
The pattern repeated in 2023, but less starkly – the value of buy orders rose 6.2%
while net selling rose by 3.7% – the result was a reduction in outflows to $7.1bn.
Over the long term, the monthly fluctuations in buy orders are two fifths greater
than the fluctuations in sell orders[3]. This same behaviour is apparent across all
our territories.
We see it in other asset classes too. Fixed income funds were in favour for most
of 2023, after a difficult year in 2022 when the bear market drove significant
outflows. But those outflows took place entirely because buying fell away – down
by a fifth in 2022; the value of sell orders was almost exactly flat year-on-year.
In 2023, by contrast, we saw strong net inflows to bond funds once again,
particularly in the first half of the year, before the bond markets began to weaken
between August and October. Inflows of $22.2bn in 2023 were driven by a sharp
one quarter increase in the value of buy orders, accompanied by a second
consecutive year where selling activity was almost exactly flat.
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The bond markets have been hard to navigate. After a good start to the year,
bonds weakened in the third quarter as economic resilience and sticky inflation
pushed up expectations for rate hikes and pushed out the time horizon for
eventual cuts, leading to higher market yields. On top of that the so-called term
premium rose significantly. This premium compensates investors for dangers
that lurk in the future – the further out you look, the less certain you can be.
Investors began to demand a bumper payday in yield terms for the risk that
inflation might be higher than expected, or interest rates may fluctuate more, or
even that a government as big as the US might default – with the economy
running hot and the fiscal deficit at 7.5% this year, that is not the outlandish
prospect it was once considered to be.
Bond markets saw strong gains towards the end of the year after a
turbulent few months
This turbulence was not great for returns in much of the second half of 2023 – at
least until mid-October – but investors have been understandably tempted by
both higher yields and the prospect of capital gains when inflation is defeated
and yields subside (yields move opposite to prices). This has already begun. A
market rally that began in late October is already generating significant gains for
investors who were brave in the turbulent weeks that went before. For example,
the US ten-year benchmark bond yield blew out to almost 5% in October before
rallying strongly to end the year down at 3.9%.
After the bear market of 2022 that saw a very large fall in bond prices as the end
of the zero-interest rate era transitioned to the higher rate environment of old, a
big change in appetite to own fixed income funds is now apparent everywhere.
Asian investors have shown the biggest reversal of sentiment – buyers across the
region switched from strong net selling in 2022 (-$7.3bn) to strong net buying of
$9.4bn in 2023. Investors in Hong Kong almost reversed all outflows they made in
2022, while those in Singapore and Taiwan ploughed back more money than they
had withdrawn the year before. In Australia, net buying quintupled year-on-year
to $3.1bn, and it more than doubled in the UK, from $4.4bn to $10.5bn. Clearly
those higher yields are proving irresistible. Even in Europe, where sentiment
towards all manner of asset classes was negative in 2023, net outflows from
bonds funds fell from $2.8bn to just $275m.
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FOCUS ON EQUITIES
Investors withdrew capital from equity funds in 2023, and were especially
negative from May onwards
2023’s outflow of $7.1bn from equity funds was significantly better than the
$13.3bn of redemptions in 2022, but we still saw outflows. Two years of net
selling is certainly unusual. In the UK, where we have a longer history of data, we
have never seen two negative consecutive years since we began compiling figures
in 2015. Despite global equity markets doing well in the first seven months of
2023, investors only added funds cautiously between January and April, before
becoming net sellers for the rest of the year, with the exception of a small flurry
of optimism in November. Even strong markets in December were not able to
tempt inflows.
If we look across our different territories, investors in the UK and Europe have
been the most negative, though the outflows were significantly smaller year-on-
year. We saw net outflows from equity funds on our network of $1.8bn in the UK
(one fifth of the level the year before) and of $1.6bn in Europe, (one sixth of the
level in 2022). Our business is not the same size in each place, however, so a
glance at our Fund Flow Index (FFI) is helpful for comparison. This compares net
fund flows to total volumes and showed a very similar 49.7 and 49.4 respectively
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for 2023, just below the neutral 50 mark where buy and sell orders are of equal
value. European investors were far more negative in 2022, so sentiment here has
improved more than in the UK.
Across Asia, we saw very modest outflows in Singapore (-$376m) that almost
exactly matched a similar inflow the year before. With an FFI reading of 48.3 it
was the weakest year for equity fund investors in Singapore on our 5-year record.
Taiwanese investors were more pessimistic and pulled $806m of capital from
equity funds on our network on lower trading volumes – this generated a FFI
reading of 45.1, the weakest of all our major territories. 2023 was the first year on
Calastone’s record that Australian investors were net sellers of equity funds,
withdrawing a modest $724m of capital, with a FFI of 49.4, in line with Europe and
the UK and better than some of their Asian neighbours – Australians were net
sellers in six of the last twelve months. Hong Kong investors were much more
optimistic, the only one of our major territories to see equity fund inflows in
2023. After a weak start to the year that reflected the stuttering reopening of the
Chinese economy, they were net buyers for most of the rest of 2023, adding
$1.6bn and generating a very positive FFI of 53.5.
Notably, index tracking funds were strongly back in favour in 2023. They attracted
inflows of $20.1bn, while active funds shed $27.2bn. In 2022, both strategies saw
outflows, though active funds suffered more, while 2021 was a rare year in which
active funds did significantly better – inflows of $40.3bn were more than three
times larger than for passive funds. Over the last five years, passive funds are
easily ahead. Investors have bought a net $53bn of passive funds, and just $1.7bn
of active ones.
FOCUS ON ESG
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In 2023, investors across our global network withdrew $10.2bn from ESG equity
funds – and we saw the same pattern in every one of our territories. Indeed, if we
exclude ESG funds, then overall equity fund flows would have been positive in
2023 to the tune of $3.0bn – a modest amount, certainly, but the clear distinction
between ESG and non-ESG and the sudden change in behaviour are startling.
European investors turned away from ESG first, but we now see the trend
across our global network
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European investors were the first to turn away from the sector. They began
selling out of ESG funds in January 2022 and did so consistently almost all of that
year. Part of this simply reflected bearishness on equities across the board, but
selling of ESG holdings was disproportionately high and illustrates how the
backlash was setting in. In 2023 they were net sellers in every month from May
to the end of the year, withdrawing a net $3.7bn. Singaporeans were close
behind. They were also net sellers in 2022, even as they continued to add to non-
ESG funds. In 2023 outflows in Singapore more than doubled to $712m, and
more than offset inflows to traditional equity fund options.
Regulators and the funds industry recognise there is work to do. In the UK,
labelling is set to become much stricter, for example. But the bigger issue is really
about what ESG means in the first place. The industry will have to work harder to
communicate with its customers if it wants to build trust in the category.
FOCUS ON PROPERTY
Property funds had another difficult year in 2023. Across Calastone’s global
network, they shed $629m of capital, the fifth consecutive year that we have seen
cash leave the sector. Outflows have totalled $6.5bn since 2019.
The worst year for the sector was 2021, when investors recognised that
commercial property occupancy trends had likely changed permanently as
working patterns adopted during the pandemic ossified into a new normal,
affecting offices, retail and distribution in particular. Thereafter, the relentless
climb in interest rates around the world from the beginning of 2022 has meant
that investors have no longer had to look much beyond cash if they want an
income, while higher long-term interest rates have impacted asset values.
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Equally, a weaker economy is bad news for the property sector too as it
suppresses rental demand. Some of our territories do not have dedicated open-
ended property funds, or these are sometimes subsumed in wider equity
categories, but where the sector is more discretely defined, such as in Europe,
the UK and Australia, we have seen consistent outflows.
https://www.calastone.com/insights/global-fund-flows-all-eyes-on-bonds/ 14/17
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In the UK and Australia the majority of business is transacted locally, but outside
those territories, most of the trades we settle cross international borders. Our
international network is a big plus for platforms and fund managers because it
means a wider product reach – that in turn means better choice for investors, not
just in the product itself but also in terms of a favoured jurisdiction for their
capital.
https://www.calastone.com/insights/global-fund-flows-all-eyes-on-bonds/ 15/17
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Portfolio managers of course grapple with these matters every day, but
there is more to the fund management industry’s profitability (and the
returns it offers investors) than just worrying about asset prices. Our
figures show that passive funds are once again in the ascendancy, bringing
ever more pressure on fees. As demographics evolve, investors have very
different expectations of how they want to interact with those providers
of savings and investments – they want a seamless digital experience with
fast settlement times. Investment products and the infrastructure fund
managers and platforms use (and expect investors and their advisors to
use) are not keeping up with this change.
Calastone knows this. The dollars you save are the easiest dollars you
make. Our global network and leading technology drives growth and
innovation, whilst eliminating layers of cost, risk and admin – helping
protect margins for asset managers, and boosting returns for investors.
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