Fund flows bounced back into positive territory last month for the smallest fund firms.

Clayton DeGiacinto Axonic Capital LLC Managing Partner, Chief Investment Officer

This article draws from Morningstar Direct data on April 2020 open-end mutual fund and ETF flows, excluding money-market funds and funds of funds. More specifically, this article focuses on the 515 firms (down from 536 in March) with less than $1 billion each in fund AUM. 224 of those firms gained net inflows in April, up from 180 in March.

Axonic led the pack last month with an estimated $185 million in net April inflows, up from negligible inflows in March. Other big April inflows winners included: TransWestern Funds, $166 million (up from $22 million); Liberty Street, $138 million (up from $109 million); Amplify ETFs, $128 million (up from $9 million in net outflows); and Toroso, $122 million (up from $104 million).

Axonic also led the inflows pack proportionately, with estimated net April inflows equivalent to 99.8 percent of its AUM, up from negligible inflows in March. Other big April inflows winners included: Affinity, 62.4 percent (up from 41.1 percent); Marmont Funds, 51.1 percent (up from 7.6 percent in net outflows); TransWestern, 49.3 percent (up from 12.8 percent); and Equinox, 40.1 percent (up from 18.1 percent).

On the flip side, April was a rough month for Friess Associates, which suffered an estimated $97 million in net outflows, more than any other micro fund firm and up from $9 million in March. Other big April outflows sufferers included: Dean, 79 million (down from $23 million in net inflows); Chiron, $77 million (down from $252 million); Evermore, $76 million (up from $57 million); and Smead, $70 million (up from $61 million).

Proportionately, AlphaCore led the micro pack with estimated net April outflows equivalent to 4,516.1 percent of its AUM (i.e. its net outflows for the month were 45 times bigger than the AUM it had left over afterwards), up from 0.1 percent in March. Other big April outflows sufferers included: Friess, 343.1 percent (up from eight percent); Second Nature Investments, 99.9 percent (up from negligible net outflows); Dean, 37.7 percent (down from 8.8 percent in net inflows); and Equbot, 31.2 percent (up from negligible outflows).

As a group, the 515 fund firms with less than $1 billion each in fund AUM brought in an estimated $879 million in net April inflows, equivalent to about 0.95 percent of their combined AUM and 5.36 percent of industrywide inflows. That's up from $2.009 billion in net micro fund firm outflows in March.

Across the entire industry, the 763 fund firms (down seven from March) tracked by the M* team brought in a combined $16.388 billion in net inflows, equivalent to 0.09 percent of their combined AUM. That's up from $326.378 billion in net March outflows. In April, active funds suffered an estimated $21.202 billion in net outflows (down from $309.808 billion in March), while passive funds brought in an estimated $37.598 billion in net inflows (up from $16.57 billion in net outflows in March).

Editor's Note: A prior version of this story a wrong overall inflows figure (as a percentage of AUM) for April. Estimated industry net inflows were equivalent to 0.09 percent of industry AUM. 

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