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The Money Market sector was still the second best selling on Cofunds in the third quarter, even though a number of its safe-haven portfolios posted losses for the period.

The sector took 11.5 per cent of net sales in the third quarter, against 20.8 per cent for first-placed peer group Cautious Managed and 10.5 per cent for third-placed Balanced Managed.

However, in performance terms, Cautious Managed lost 4.4 per cent in the three months to 29 September and Balanced Managed lost 6.4 per cent.

The picture overall was of IFAs and their clients allocating to more cautious or diversified sectors, largely regardless of whether they were making short-term profits.

Other so-called "safe-haven" income products remained popular, despite heavy losses in equity and credit markets. Sterling Corporate Bond took 5.8 per cent of net sales, UK Equity Income funds captured 5.5 per cent and UK Gilt investments won 5.2 per cent.

The only one of those sectors to gain money over the three months to 29 September was UK Gilts, which had a net sales share of 2.6 per cent.

North America and Global Growth also enjoyed large net sales shares of 6.7 per cent and 6.9 per cent, respectively. However, although it enjoyed lower inflows, North America also enjoyed lower losses, of 0.8 per cent as opposed to 7.5 per cent.

Europe excluding the UK suffered the worst outflows, posting 3.3 per cent of net outflows. In performance terms, it declined 9.3 per cent to 29 September.

However, managers also raised concerns about longer-term performance in 10 of the most popular non-managed sectors to the end of the third quarter.

Of 944 funds in the 10 peer groups, only 25 finished top quartile in each of the last three 12-month periods, according to multi-managers Gary Potter and Rob Burdett at Thames River Capital.

Of the most popular sectors on Cofunds in April for which Thames River provided data, only five out of 160 funds in Global Growth were top quartile every year, while just four out of 82 UK Equity Income funds, three out of 80 Sterling Corporate Bond funds and two out of 70 US funds also attained this level.

In terms of individual portfolios on Cofunds, the £1.4bn BlackRock UK Absolute Alpha fund won the largest share of net sales, as it did in the first two quarters of this year.