KARACHI: The mutual fund industry showed a healthy growth of 19 per cent in January 2012 over the earlier month, with total funds under management touching Rs342 billion.

Open-ended funds which command 94 per cent of the total funds with the industry, stood at Rs321 billion, up 20 per cent in the first month of the year, over the previous month.

During the seven months of the financial year 2011-12 (Jul-Jan), the size of mutual funds industry took a leap of 37 per cent “mainly on account of fixed income funds and money market funds,” say analysts at InvestCap.

The brokerage calculated that the fixed income funds grew by 117 per cent to Rs84 billion and money market funds rose by 62 per cent to Rs125 billion in the seven months. During the July-Jan period, open-ended funds appreciated by 43pc.

Fixed income funds grew 53 per cent in January of the new year, over the previous month, while money market funds rebounded by 19 per cent after a fall of 12pc in Dec 2011 over the preceding month. It was interesting to note that at the end of the first month of 2012, the equity funds stood at Rs47bn, showing an increase of 6pc over the previous month. The improvement in equity funds mirrored the turnaround in the stock market where the KSE-100 index gained 4.6pc in Jan.

Over the seven-month term, however, the equity funds were laggards, representing cumulative decrease of 9pc in funds under management.