The active and passive sides of the mutual fund industry both suffered net outflows last month, with even the low-cost leviathan seeing its net inflows plummet.

Mortimer J. "Tim" Buckley Vanguard President, CEO

This article draws from Morningstar Direct data on August 2019 mutual fund and ETF flows, excluding money market funds and funds of funds. More specifically, this article focuses on the 28 firms with more than $100 billion each in fund AUM. 14 of those firms gained net August inflows.

Vanguard kept the lead last month with an estimated $6.14 billion in net August inflows, despite a 58.9 percent inflows drop from $14.89 billion in July. Other big August winners included: Fidelity, $4.299 billion (up from $2.345 billion); Schwab, $2.764 billion (down from $2.782 billion); Goldman Sachs, $2.073 billion (up from $1.388 billion); and Lord Abbett, $1.87 billion (up from $1.868 billion).

Proportionately, Goldman kept the lead among the biggest fund firms, thanks to estimated net August inflows equivalent to 1.97 percent of its AUM, up from 1.33 percent in July. Other big August winners included: PGIM, 1.37 percent (up from 1.13 percent); TCW (including MetWest), 1.32 percent (up from 0.5 percent); Lord Abbett, 1.24 percent (down from 1.26 percent); and Schwab, 1.17 percent (negligible change).

On the flip side, August was a rough month for SSgA, which suffered an estimated $10.815 billion in net outflows, more than any other big fund firm and down from $8.087 billion in net July inflows. Other big August sufferers included: BlackRock, $7.427 billion (up from $2.215 billion); Invesco, $3.388 billion (up from $2.501 billion); Franklin Templeton, $2.042 billion (up from $1.506 billion); and American Century, $682 million (up from $604 million).

SSgA also led the large fund firm outflows pack proportionately last month, with estimated net August outflows equivalent to 1.63 percent of its AUM, down from 1.18 percent in net July inflows. Other big August sufferers included: Invesco, 0.64 percent (up from 0.46 percent); American Century, 0.64 percent (up from 0.56 percent); Franklin, 0.59 percent (up from 0.45 percent); and BlackRock, 0.41 percent (up from 0.12 percent).

As a group, the 28 firms with more than $100 billion each in fund assets suffered an estimated $3.252 billion in net August outflows, equivalent to 0.02 percent of their combined AUM. That's down from $30.858 billion in net inflows in July.

Across the whole industry (M* tracks flows from 767 firms, down from 771 in July), long-term mutual funds and ETFs suffered a combined $15.927 billion in net outflows in August, equivalent to about 0.08 percent of industry AUM. That's down from $26.698 billion in net July inflows. Passive funds suffered $4.7 billion in net August outflows, while active funds suffered $11.227 billion in net outflows. 

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