In the third quarter, stock markets suffered from muted market sentiment, which manifested in losses and cash outflows for the Swiss fund market. 

The growth momentum that emerged at the beginning of the year in the Swiss fund market has diminished, according to an Asset Management Association Switzerland (AMAS) market review released Tuesday.

The report said that all asset classes suffered slight outflows except for money market funds, with the negative performance also impacting volumes, it said. This stood at just over 1.36 trillion Swiss francs at the end of September, representing a decline of 1.3 percent compared to the previous quarter.

Head Above Water

Since the beginning of the year, however, assets under management in the Swiss fund market increased by 36.7 billion Swiss francs or 2.8 percent. Of this increase, 1.9 percentage points are attributable to performance and 0.9 percentage points to new money inflows.

The market structure of the largest Swiss asset managers shows UBS at the top, followed by Credit Suisse, it added. The bank acquired by UBS will be shown separately in AMAS' fund statistics as long as the funds remain named accordingly.

Global Challenges

At the end of last year, the world's 500 largest fund houses saw assets under management (AuM) decline 13.7 percent year-on-year to $113.7 trillion, according to a research paper by Thinking Ahead Institute, marking the first significant drop since the 2008 global financial crisis.

While Swiss fund managers appear to be more resilient, at least for now, according to AMAS results, challenges lie ahead. 

«As we have conducted this research, a common theme throughout our conversations with managers has been to expect a higher-for-longer regime in interest rates in which concerns about inflation and growth remain elevated, suggesting investment managers are not out of the woods yet,» said Jessica Gao, director at the Thinking Ahead Institute.

Overall, BlackRock was the largest asset manager by AuM at nearly $8.6 trillion. This was followed by Vanguard ($7.3 trillion), Fidelity Investments ($3.7 trillion), State Street Global ($3.5 trillion) and JPMorgan ($2.8 trillion). Among Swiss institutions on the list, UBS came at number ten with AuM of $1.8 trillion, Credit Suisse 53rd with $477 billion, and Swiss Life Asset Managers with $271 billion 82nd.