Net inflows of $55 billion in Q1 helped to push assets invested in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) listed in the United States to a new all-time high of $1.47 trillion US dollars at the end of Q1 2013, according to figures from ETFGI’s US ETF and ETP industry insights report for Q1.
At the end of Q1, the US ETF and ETP industry had 1,439 ETFs and ETPs, assets of $1.47 billion, from 53 providers on 3 exchanges. ETF and ETP assets have increased by 8.8% from $1.35 billion at the end of 2012 to $1.47 billion at the end of Q1. In March 2013, ETFs and ETPs listed in the US recorded net inflows of $17.1 billion. Equity ETFs/ETPs gathered the largest net inflows with $12.3 billion, followed by fixed income with $4.3 billion, and leveraged inverse with $805 million, while commodity ETFs and ETPs experienced net outflows of $1.7 billion.
Equity ETFs and ETPs saw net inflows of $12.3 billion in March. ETFs and ETPs providing exposure to the US/North American equities gathered the largest net inflows with $14.1 billion, followed by developed Asia Pacific equity indices with $2.4 billion, and global (ex-US) equity with $1.2 billion, while emerging market equity ETFs and ETPs experienced net outflows of $5.4 billion.
Fixed income ETFs and ETPs saw net inflows of $4.3 billion in March. Government/corporate exposures gathered the largest net inflows of $1.3 billion, followed by high yield with $1.3 billion, and government bonds with $918 million, while emerging market bond ETFs and ETPs experienced the largest net outflows with $322 million.
Commodity ETFs and ETPs saw net outflows of $1.7 billion. Precious metals ETFs and ETPs experienced the largest net outflows of $1.7 billion, followed by products providing exposure to energy with $331 million, while broad commodity ETFs and ETPs gathered net inflows of $361 million.
In Q1 2013, ETFs and ETPs had robust net inflows of $55 billion. Equity ETFs and ETPs gathered the largest net inflows in Q1 with $50.4 billion, followed by fixed income with $5.0 billion, and leveraged inverse with 3.0 billion, while commodity ETFs and ETPs experienced net outflows of $5.9 billion.
“The increase in the number of institutional investors globally using ETFs and ETPs is an important factor driving the growth in the net new asset flows, as well as the growth in total assets under management. Our analysis of reported share ownership of ETFs and ETPs using the Thomson Reuters Share ownership database has found that the number of institutional investors that have used ETFs and ETPs globally has grown at a compound annual rate of 8.9% in the five years to 2011” according to Deborah Fuhr, Managing Partner at ETFGI.
Vanguard gathered the largest net ETF and ETP inflows in March with $3.8 billion, followed by iShares with $3.3 billion and SPDR with $2.1 billion net inflows. In Q1 2013 Vanguard gathered the largest net ETF and ETP inflows with $19.7 billion, followed by iShares with $16.6 billion and WisdomTree with $5.9 billion net inflows.
S&P Dow Jones has the largest amount of ETF and ETP assets tracking its benchmarks with $474 billion, reflecting 32.3% market share; MSCI is second with $355 billion and 24.2% market share, followed by Barclays with $165 billion and 11.3% market share.
