Equity fund AUMs are seeing a net outflow and many SIPs are steadily decreasing because investors are wary of the volatility that is upon them in the post Covid Era.
The March 2020 crash spooked many long term investors. They are conserving cash.
New investors aren’t even looking at MFs per se; the excitement is in stocks. The Robinhood investor generation is in, now. Even HNI investors have opened a record number of demat accounts.
Another reason is that Mutual Fund returns have been very lacklustre. The median multicap fund has barely returned 0.89% per year over the last 3 years ( the average being 1.6% only).
Hence many smart investors are referring for a clean and honest equity advisory services that does not take custody of client holdings/cash/units/stocks and gives unbiased advise. The returns with a good advisor can be compared[1] with either MFs or the index.
Footnotes[1] http://jamawealth.com/compare