Mutual funds behind interests

The yields of the mutual funds kept above the inflation last month, yet failed to outrun interests provided by banks. The gains of the mutual fund investors have kept between the inflationary level and the interests level in the last 12 months, after all. The average increase in the fund shares in the last year was, according to the National Union of Collective Investment Bodies (UNOPC), of 13.1% compared with 9.9% inflation. Banking deposits for the same period yielded up to 18% depending on maturity. Average gains of the fund investors stood at 1.2% against a 0.6% inflation last month. Those to profit the most were the investors in stock market funds given the rise in the quotes on the Stock Exchange. These funds do not make much a difference among Romanian mutual funds, however, as they only account for several percentage points of the total. Stocks make up only 4.7% of the mutual funds’ assets, as most investments, 82%, are directed to government securities. One of the causes for the gap between stock market and government securities investments is that DePfa Money Market, which turned into a closed-end fund this year, accounts for more than half of the total assets of the Romanian funds and invests solely in government securities. ZF