AUM and inflows rebounded last month, for the industry and for the titans.

Mortimer J. "Tim" Buckley Vanguard Chairman, CEO

This article draws from Morningstar Direct data for January 2023 mutual fund and ETF flows, excluding money-market funds and funds of funds. (Other asset management products, like collective trusts and SMAs, are also not included.***) More specifically, this article focuses on the eight firms (down year-overy-ear from nine in January 2022) with more than $500 billion each in long-term fund AND ETF AUM.

Jumbo fund firms had $16.372 trillion in total long-term fund AUM across 7,775 funds as of January 31, 2023, and they accounted for 67.75 percent of overall industry long-term fund AUM. That compares with $15.429 trillion and 67.88 percent on December 31, 2022) and with $18.223 trillion and 68.23 percent on January 31, 2022.

Five of those jumbo fund firms brought in net inflows in January 2023. That's up month-over-month from three in December 2022 and up year-over-year from four in January 2022.

Vanguard took the lead last month, thanks to an estimated $17.497 billion in January 2023 inflows, up M/M from $2.399 billion in December 2022 and up Y/Y from $9.967 billion in January 2022. Other big January 2022 inflows winners included: J.P. Morgan (including Six Circles), $10.734 billion (up M/M from $4.052 billion, up Y/Y from $1.994 billion); and BlackRock (including iShares), $4.868 billion (down M/M from $8.477 billion, up Y/Y from $3.902 billion in net outflows).

On the flip side, T. Rowe Price took the outflows lead last month, thanks to an estimated $6.018 billion, down M/M from $7.212 billion in December 2022 but up Y/Y from $4.403 billion in January 2022. Other big January 2023 outflows sufferers included: Invesco, $2.641 billion (down M/M from $5.874 billion, down Y/Y from $3.305 billion); and Capital Group (home of the American Funds), $2.61 billion (down M/M from $10.65 billion, down Y/Y from $3.726 billion in net inflows).

As a group, the eight largest fund firms brought in $26.226 billion in net January 2023 inflows, equivalent to 0.16 percent of their combined AUM and accounting for 61.45 percent of overall industry inflows. That compares with $11.598 billion in net outflows, 0.08 percent of AUM, and 13.51 percent of industry outflows in December 2022, and with $1.071 billion in net outflows and 0.01 percent of AUM in January 2022.

Across the entire industry, the 783 firms tracked by the M* team (down M/M from 788, down Y/Y from 797) brought in an estimated $42.682 billion in net January 2023 inflows, equivalent to 0.18 percent of overall long-term fund AUM of $24.165 trillion, across 42,338 funds. That's up M/M from $85.82 billion in net outflows and 0.38 percent of AUM in December 2022, and up Y/Y from $8.936 billion in net inflows and 0.03 percent of AUM in January 2022.

Passive funds brought in $47.436 billion in net long-term fund inflows in January 2023, up M/M from $35.056 billion in December 2022 and up Y/Y from $22.087 billion in January 2022. Yet active funds suffered $4.367 billion in net January 2023 outflows, down M/M from $121.317 billion and down Y/Y from $13.138 billion.

***This caveat is particularly important for jumbo fund firms, many of which are big players in the 401(k) business, where collective investment trusts (CITs) are a commonly used alternative to traditional mutual funds. For example, as the T. Rowe team revealed last week, in January 2023 their clients transferred about $1.1 billion out of T. Rowe mutual funds and into other T. Rowe products like CITs and SMAs. And T. Rowe is a big retirement plan provider and DC I-O asset manager, especially in the target-date fund (TDF) space. 

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