Japan Mutual Funds See Slower Inflows As Shares Dip

, an industry body said on Monday. Net buying of investment trust funds, a type of mutual fund known as toushin among investors, totalled 49.5 billion yen ($633.07 million) in July, less than a fifth of the total net purchases in the previous month, the Investment Trusts Association said.

TOKYO, Aug 13 Net inflows into Japanese mutual funds slowed in July as declines in Tokyo stock prices and a firmer yen made investors more cautious, an industry body said on Monday.

Net buying of investment trust funds, a type of mutual fund known as toushin among investors, totalled 49.5 billion yen ($633.07 million) in July, less than a fifth of the total net purchases in the previous month, the Investment Trusts Association said.

"Falls in market prices played an important part to slow down inflows during the month, especially after seeing very strong inflows over the last three months," Seiichi Niki, general manager at the association, told a news conference.

Net inflows in Japan-domiciled equities funds totalled 1.46 trillion yen between April to June, data from the association showed.

The overall value of investment trust funds rose for the second straight month to 58.6 trillion yen ($749.46 billion), up 219.8 billion yen or 0.4 percent from a month earlier.

While falls in domestic shares and the yen's firmness against key currencies weighed on the performance, stronger overseas equity markets and the fall of the yen against the Australian dollar and the Brazilian real helped produce investment gains to push up overall asset value in July, Niki said.

The value of exchange traded funds (ETFs) posted the biggest percentage fall since March 2011, after jumping more than 15 percent in June.

The value of ETFs has dropped 4.9 percent or 174.2 billion yen to 3.4 trillion yen in July from a month earlier. It reached 3.57 trillion yen the previous month, the highest since May 2008.

The asset value of ETFs dropped due to falls in domestic share prices. The benchmark Nikkei shed 3.4 percent during the month, while the broader Topix index fell 4.4 percent.

Japan's mutual fund market, which is bigger than the economy of Turkey, is the second-largest in the Asia-Pacific region after Australia and the eighth-largest in the world.

($1 = 78.1900 Japanese yen) (Reporting by Chikafumi Hodo; Editing by Kim Coghill)