Although overall trading volumes in the exchange traded fund marketplace on Monday were nothing to write home about and well below average, we did see some noteworthy activity in Global S&P Index funds that typically fly under the radar of most managers.
IOO (iShares S&P Global 100 Index), IXG (iShares S&P Global Financials), IXJ (iShares S&P Global Healthcare), EXI (iShares S&P Global Industrials), IGF (iShares S&P Global Infrastructure), IXN (iShares S&P Global Technology), IXP (iShares S&P Global Telecom) and JXI (iShares S&P Global Utilities) all saw uncommonly higher trading volumes yesterday, and we believe that a manager or managers are systematically rotating out of U.S. domestic based equity funds that are based on similar sectors as those above, and making a tactical shift into global equities via these ETFs.
IOO for instance traded more than 500% of its typical average daily trading volume yesterday, with over 480,000 shares changing hands and IXG traded over 218,000 shares, which is more than 4 times its average daily volume. IOO is based on the S&P Global 100 Index which tracks the 100 companies that have major influence in the global markets.
Currently, U.S. based equities make up about 49.67% of the overall index with European based equities (41.89%), Japan (4.37%), Developed Asia (1.97%), and Australia (1.64%) rounding out the rest of the basket. Top holdings of IOO currently are XOM (5.59%), IBM (3.21%), CVX (2.95%), NESN (2.79%), and MSFT (2.73%).
Year to date, IOO has trailed the U.S. large cap benchmark, the S&P 500 (-4.32%) having lost 10.97% thus far in 2011. Over a five year time horizon, IOO is also trailing, losing 26.42% versus the S&P 500 down 15.47%.