September 2012 saw European mutual funds attract their largest monthly inflows since October 2010, with net sales of €28.9 billion (around $36.8 billion) (excluding money market funds). Investors withdrew from money market funds during the month; including these products net sales stood at €19.8 billion.

Lipper's latest snapshot of European fund trends reports that investors’ appetite for high yield bond funds remains strong. Net sales for the month stood at €7.6 billion, bringing the year-to-date total to €39.9 billion. Emerging market debt funds also saw strong net inflows of €4.5 billion.

Equity funds attracted positive flows for the first time since March, with net sales of €4.6 billion, of which €1.7 billion was in exchange-traded funds. While much of the interest was focused on global dividend funds, pan-European and Euroland equity funds saw a revival with net sales of €3.1 billion.

Mixed asset funds also enjoyed healthy inflows in September of €3.8 billion, the highest total since February 2011. Here, sales were dominated by asset allocation funds, generally absolute return type products.