Retail fund sales turned positive in August
Retail fund sales became positive in August for the first time since April, as net retail sales hit £1.7bn.
According to Hargreaves Lansdown, this was due to £1.2bn of inflows into fixed income funds. There was an outflow of £629m from equity funds.
Read more: Standard Life will re-open its property fund in October
Property fund transactions were flat in August. Hargreaves Lansdown said this was "no great surprise" given the widespread trading suspensions in property funds that took place after the Brexit vote.
Three months after the EU referendum, property funds turned out to be some of the biggest losers from the Brexit vote. According to Hargreaves Lansdown, these were the worst performing funds three months after the referendum:
| Fund | Total return since 23 June |
| Kames Property Income | -8.8 per cent |
| FP Argonaut Absolute Return | -6.6 per cent |
| Aviva Investors Property Trust | -6.2 per cent |
| Elite Webb Smaller Companies Income & Growth | -5.9 per cent |
| M&G Property Portfolio Sterling | -5.8 per cent |
| SLI UK Real Estate Retail | -5.5 per cent |
| Henderson UK Property | -4.6 per cent |
| SF Webb Capital Smaller Companies Growth | -4.5 per cent |
| Aberdeen UK Property | -4.5 per cent |
| Legal & General UK Property | -3.9 per cent |
Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Bond funds were the winners from the post-Brexit fund bounce, as a result of loose monetary policy grinding into gear once again. Investors clearly decided not to fight the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, and to just go with the flow.
"That has certainly been the right call since quantitative easing was introduced seven years ago, though bonds are yielding ever less, while monetary policy is surely bumping up against the law of diminishing returns.
"Meanwhile investors are not quite as convinced that monetary stimulus is going to feed through into the stock market, as equity funds continued to see selling pressure."